FORT PIERCE \u2013 The St. Lucie County Commission unanimously agreed Jan. 27 to accept the $375,000 settlement of a class-action lawsuit it joined along with St. Johns and Marion counties against the Lakeland-based Publix Supermarket chain for the role its pharmacists played in the dispensing of highly addictive opioids.<\/p>\n
The county has focused on similar class-action litigation since a different Commission directed staff in May 2019 to piggyback on a contingent fee retainer agreement that the City of Fort Pierce signed with a group of local attorneys. The following month that group filed their first suit, and those legal actions got a significant boost two years later when then Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced a series of historic settlements between the state and opioid manufacturers, distributors and dispensers.<\/p>\n
The funds from those settlements are projected to exceed $3 billion over the next 18 years, and Governor Ron DeSantis subsequently announced in 2023 his plans to release $205.7 million for Florida communities to fund prevention, treatment and recovery assistance.<\/p>\n
County Attorney Katherine Barbieri introduced the agenda item to commissioners that evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the opioid litigation proposed settlement with Publix,\u201d she said. \u201cThis has been ongoing for several years. We have settled with several other entities out there and we are going to use the money to fight opioids in St. Lucie County. We have a recommendation now from our outside counsel. We joined a group for class-action, and we are recommending that you approve the settlement and authorize the chair to sign any documents.\u201d<\/p>\n
District 5 Commissioner Cathy Townsend immediately posed a clarification question.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen are we going to start spending some of this money for the programs and stuff?\u201d she asked. \u201cEvery time I\u2019ve inquired, nobody can give a straight answer. I know there are programs out there needed, and there\u2019s a lot of money, millions. So, when is some of it going to start to be spent?\u201d<\/p>\n
County Administrator George Landry fielded that inquiry, attempting to explain the delay since the governor\u2019s announcement three years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn early December, we had to redo the Opioid Committee, the funding committee,\u201d he replied. \u201cWhen we received submittals, just about everybody on the committee had some sort of potential conflict [of interest] with one of those agencies. We didn\u2019t want to discontinue any of those agencies from being able to receive these funds, so by restructuring that, it required it come to you all. We had to notify the agencies and get those people together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Landry emphasized that the Health Department has worked all along in the background to analyze the health provider responses to the county\u2019s initial request for proposals and is currently qualifying them to come back to the committee within the next two or three months once it\u2019s reformed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll come before them, they\u2019ll make the recommendation to award to all the responding ones that qualify and then that item will back before you for ratification,\u201d he explained. \u201cWith that, we can go right into contracting and issuing out this first year\u2019s round of disbursements to those agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner James Clasby, in turn, asked for further clarification for county residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you just remind us what exactly this money is used for in some plain English?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s used to help combat the opioid issues within the community,\u201d Landry explained. \u201cIt\u2019s used for direct services like MAT [medication-assisted treatment] for those trying to get off of opioids; for trainings; and some other types of programs. There\u2019s a handful of non-profits and for-profits that submitted for this revenue. All of them have the opportunity to use this to enhance the funds they\u2019re doing, and it will provide more expansive treatment. Some of these places charge money to folks, and we want to be able to get it out there where it\u2019s free to the people that need to get healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Landry pointed back to the state\u2019s efforts in 2021 as the genesis of the current focus and provided another reason for the county\u2019s slow roll-out of the proceeds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat started the program, we joined, and we\u2019re one of 20-some counties that are what\u2019s considered a regional recipient,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, we get funds to the county [and] the cities get funds, but we also get this regional pot. That\u2019s why we had to erect this committee and go through this extensive process. That\u2019s a large sum of money paid over 18 years that the county will receive separate from the individual funds each municipality receives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immediately afterward, Commissioner Clasby made a motion to approve the Publix settlement, which was seconded by Commissioner Larry Leet. Before the vote, Commissioner Townsend provided her historical perspective as the longest-sitting Board member.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a class-action lawsuit Cynthia Angelo\u2019s law firm handled for us, and we joined it with a couple other counties,\u201d she recalled. \u201cThis was a big deal because we won, and it\u2019s millions and millions and millions of dollars. With some of the programs that have been cut at the state level \u2013 our jail, New Horizons, a lot of our mental health counseling here within the county \u2013 this could be going to provide a lot of services for people. I didn\u2019t know where we were at the tail end of this because this money has just been sitting there in limbo and not being used, and there\u2019s people needing the services.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her part, Chairwoman Jamie Fowler pointed out that the state had also faced delays in the roll-out.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year when I was on the Public Safety Council, our public defender would come into that meeting, and I was like when are we going to start,\u201d she recalled. \u201cBut at that point in time, we were still waiting on instructions from the state as to exactly how it could be used. So, it\u2019s been slow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The County Commission then voted unanimously to accept the Publix opioid settlement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 The St. Lucie County Commission unanimously agreed Jan. 27 to accept the $375,000 settlement of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":["post-141710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-st_lucie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}