Jacksonville City Councilman Bill Gulliford has scheduled his second meeting to address the opioid epidemic in Jacksonville for April 3, at 3 p.m. at City Hall.
“There will be doctors there, the servicing folks, everybody that has something at stake with it and now I’m going to look to them to give direction,” Gulliford said. “If we come up with an idea of a task force, OK that’s what other cities have done. Maybe that’s one step, but that’s not the only step.”
He said the City Council may also need to look to further funding the heroin fight in the next budget.
His first meeting earlier this month highlighted the issue of opioid addiction in Jacksonville, which kills more than three times as many people as guns do in the city, he said. Parents told stories of their children overdosing, and Jacksonville Medical Examiner Dr. Valerie Rao listed all of the overdose cases from just that day. There were 10 of them.
“Help us,” she pleaded with the City Council members.
April’s meeting will be held in City Hall’s Lynwood Roberts room.
Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride.
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