Council Public Works & Health Committee

# Council Hears Progress Report on Fentanyl Crisis Response — With Questions About Missing Accountability On a Tuesday morning in late April, Whatcom County's Public Works and Health Committee convened to hear an update that many had been eagerly awaiting: how the county's ambitious Fentanyl Operations Plan was performing nearly eight months after its launch. But what began as a straightforward progress report evolved into a pointed discussion about whether the county's response was missing a crucial component — accountability measures to complement its harm reduction approach. ## Meeting Overview The April 29, 2025 committee meeting brought together Chair Jon Scanlon and committee members Mark Stremler and Ben Elenbaas, along with several other councilmembers participating both in-person and online. The sole agenda item was a presentation by Carrie Holley, a program specialist with Whatcom County Health and Community Services, delivering the promised quarterly update on the operations plan that emerged from the county's fentanyl executive order. The meeting, held in the hybrid format that has become standard for county business, lasted just over half an hour but packed considerable substance into that time. What made this session particularly noteworthy wasn't just the data presented, but the philosophical tension that emerged about how the county should balance public health approaches with accountability measures in addressing the ongoing opioid crisis. ## The Data Picture: Mixed Signals on Progress Holley began with what has become the standard opening for health department presentations — a reminder of the department's mission to "advance equity and partner with our community to promote health, prevent disease and injury." But the data that followed painted a complex picture of where Whatcom County stands in its battle against fentanyl. Emergency department visits for opioid overdoses remained relatively stable through the first quarter of 2025, hovering around 30-33 visits per month according to data current through March. "So as you can see, the bottom blue line is opioid overdose, and the top black line is any drug overdose," Holley explained, pointing to charts that showed the persistent challenge of poly-drug use in the community. The EMS data told a similar story but with higher numbers, as Holley noted that "not everyone that has an overdose in the field ends up in the emergency room." Through April 22, EMS had responded to 175 suspecte…