The last 13 minutes of the March 8, 2018 meeting of the Milwaukee Public Safety and Health Committee, which consisted of Communication from the Milwaukee City-County Heroin, Opioid and Cocaine Task Force provided by Alderman Michael Murphy, the new chairman of the Task Force, and a Tiffinie Cobb, Substance Abuse & Injury Prevention Manager City of Milwaukee Health Department. Here is a link to the entire meeting video: http://milwaukee.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=1599
The reason the Task Force is even there is because I reminded Alderman Donovan a month earlier that the Public Safety and Health Committee "controls" the Task Force and that the resolution that constituted the Task Force calls for quarterly updates to the Common Council -- none of which have been made for the last nine months. As of March 5th, there was no agenda item for this communication, so I contacted Alderman Donovan again and he added it to the agenda. Coincidentally, that is me sitting directly behind Alderman Murphy. Tiffinie is the new staff person helping the Task Force organize, document and present their findings.
At the 7:45 minute mark, Alderman Donovan mentions me and the documents that were added to the record and they go on to discuss the issues I raised for a couple minutes. I had submitted two documents to the Committee which were added to the record: My Feedback to the most recent complete version of the Work Plan Draft, which you can find here: https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AMakcQ7RQjgpn2s&cid=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181&id=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181%21523&parId=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181%21104&o=OneUp and a list of questions I wanted committee chairman, Alderman Robert Donovan, to ask the representatives of the Task Force, which you can see here: https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ACP%5FpkIvwLA2YBg&cid=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181&id=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181%21529&parId=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181%21104&o=OneUp
Alderman Donovan did ask one very important question from my list regarding what the DEA was doing about physicians illegally prescribing opioids. I had recently sent two letters to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, all members of the Common Council and all Members of the County Board regarding this issue. Here is the letter from 2/24/18: https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ACP%5FpkIvwLA2YBg&cid=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181&id=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181%21529&parId=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181%21104&o=OneUp and here is the one from 3/5/18: https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ACzWp7M3b%2DRoZdk&cid=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181&id=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181%21528&parId=F1A9BB2A7F0EA181%21104&o=OneUp
Needless to say, I was happy that at least they had finally acknowledged the issue (please see letters for details). In a serendipitous coincidence, the new Commissioner of Health for the City of Milwaukee, and Tiffinie's boss, Patricia McManus, was there and I was able to give here a copy of my feedback on the Task Force Work Plan, my list of questions for the Task Force and copies of the two aforementioned letters. She was very receptive.
