By Lindsay Peyton
Burien city attorney Lisa Marshall started the discussion about banning safe injection sites with a warning. During the city council’s regular meeting on Monday, she told council members not to talk about it – at least for now.
Marshall explained that the timing was wrong.
Council member Debi Wagner made a motion to ban safe injection sites in Burien – but the item was not on the council’s original agenda. Marshall said that Initiative 27, which proposes banning safe injection sites in King County, was added to the Nov. 8 ballot last week.
For the Burien City Council to take a position in favor or against a ballot measure, Marshall said, advanced notice would be required. The notice would have to include the name of the ballot measure.
“There are definitely cities that have taken positions for and against. It’s not whether you can or cannot take a position for or against the initiative that’s an issue. The issue is notice,” she said. “That’s what hasn’t happened here.”
If Initiative 27 passes, Marshall added, it would effectively ban safe injection sites in Burien.
“There is certainly a risk of a PDC (public disclosure complaint),” she said. “Also staff has not had the opportunity to study this issue and bring forward to the council information concerning the issue. And I understand there is quite a lot.”
Wagner moved to put the discussion on a future agenda “It’s a timely issue that needs to be discussed,” she said.
City manager Brian Wilson also said that staff needed time to gather information on the topic.
Council member Lauren Berkowitz objected to Wagner’s position that the matter was time sensitive.
Council member Nancy Tosta agreed with Berkowitz. “It is an important issue, I do want to talk about it, but I object to how this has been presented,” she said.
Council member Austin Bell voted against the motion – with Tosta and Berkowitz. Mayor Lucy Krakowiak and council members Wagner, Stephen Armstrong and Bob Edgar voted in favor of the measure.
Once the vote was taken, which removed the item from the agenda, the mayor opened the floor for public comment.
“Heroin is scary, and it gives rise to fears of violence, to fears of public safety, to fears of increased crime,” Burien resident Mike Walsh said. “The facts are something we should seriously consider. The science and data are something we should seriously consider – and not vote based on fear.”
Walsh said safe injection sites protect addicts – and reduces crime in areas where they are placed.
“Addiction, like cancer is a disease,” he said. “Like cancer, it can come back.”
He offered to connect council members and staff with resources to make an informed decision.
Burien resident Frank Coluccio spoke in favor of banning safe injection sites. He said that Renton, Kent, Auburn and Federal Way had already voted to ban them.
“It is time to send the same message from Burien,” he said. “We do not want them here.”
Coluccio said he works in a prison that has a drug rehabilitation program – and that he has learned addicts need to want to become better for anything to work.
“All safe injection sites do is allow them to inject poison in their veins, clean them up when they overdose and let them do it again a few hours later,” he said. “That’s not helping.”
Coluccio does not believe addiction is a disease. “Cancer is a disease,” he said. “Addiction is a choice. They made a bad choice.”
Burien city staff members plan to present more information about safe injection sites to the council at a later date.
Earlier in the week, King County issued a press release stating that a lawsuit has been filed to challenge Initiative 27 on the “grounds that public health policy is not subject to veto by citizen initiative.”
The lawsuit – “Protect Public Health v. King County/I-27” -- was filed by Protect Public Health, an organization comprised of experts and family members who have lost loved ones to overdose.
Protect Public Health is represented by attorney Knoll Lowney and Claire Tonry of Smith & Lowney, PLLC.
According to the release, the initiative ignores the evidence that safe injection sites, also known as Supervised Consumption Spaces, reduce the risk of fatal overdose and the transmission of disease.
“These spaces also promote access to chemical dependency treatment and other supportive care, and increase public safety,” the release stated.
The opening of two pilot Supervised Consumption Spaces was recommended by the King County Heroin and Prescription Opiate Addiction Task Force in 2016 – the same year that the county reported 332 overdoses.
