Penobscot County opens opioid committee meetings to the public after backlash

By Annie Rupterus, Bangor Daily News Staff

Penobscot County will begin live streaming its opioid funds committee meetings as it works to finalize an application to distribute millions of dollars it’s receiving from national litigation over the opioid epidemic.

Members of the public will be able to tune in to the committee’s next meeting at 9 a.m. on Monday on the county’s YouTube channel. The county also added minutes from past meetings to a new page on its website this week.

The change comes after the Bangor Daily News reported that the county was holding meetings without public notice and was not posting meeting minutes or any other reports of the committee’s decision-making, which prompted backlash from some community members. 

The committee’s members are tasked with planning how to spend the approximately $4.5 million the county will receive from opioid settlements by 2038.

“It is important that people know how we arrived at the point where decisions are being made and the conversations that happened,” said committee member Jamie Beck. Beck previously said that she raised concerns about transparency to the committee early on.

“We the whole time had planned on making these meetings public” at some point in the future, said Wendy Dana, Penobscot County’s grant administrator. 

Dana recently joined the committee, replacing County Administrator Scott Adkins. Adkins did not respond to requests for comment earlier this month about the committee’s structure and process.

“I think it’s going to be extremely valuable that we do have an opportunity now” to engage with the public, Dana said, although she maintained that she thinks the committee is better off having waited before opening the meetings.

The six committee members are Dana, Beck, Sheriff Troy Morton, recovery advocate Pat Kimball, recovery coach Angela Walker and Randy Jackson, a former Millinocket town councilor who founded a recovery home.

The committee is tentatively planning to start accepting funding proposals in October and release decisions by the end of December, according to Beck.