City Commissioners on Tuesday discussed the possibility of Owensboro becoming a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), which could give the City more than $700,000 in federal funding to combat the ongoing meth issues facing the area.
To get the ball rolling, a drug threat seminar will be held in the City Commission chambers — if allowed — in September, Mayor Tom Watson said. Several officials, including the director of HIDTA, U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Kentucky State Police are scheduled to be in attendance.
“We’re going to have a summit here to discuss how we can get federal money to help us with our meth problem,” Watson said. “This is a big deal. We’ve been working on it for a while with Senator (Mitch) McConnell’s staff.”
With Vanderburgh County, Ind., having recently been designated as a HIDTA, Watson said the town’s close proximity to Owensboro would likely be beneficial.
“Odds are, when they get federal funding and get federal people marching over there, guess where they’re going to go? To the next largest city,” he said. “That in itself, I think, helps us.”
On Tuesday, the Owensboro-Daviess County Drug Steering Committee held a Zoom meeting to discuss a grant that both Watson and McConnell have been working to acquire for Owensboro.
During that meeting, City Commissioner Larry Conder — who is part of the steering committee alongside his wife and CASA Director Rosemary Conder — said discussions were had about the recent struggles in getting grants off the ground that are not related to COVID-19. Lately, he said, those grants had been getting “lost in the shuffle.”
“That prompted a conversation of ‘What do we do with the drug steering committee, how should it be formed going forward?’” Conder said Tuesday. “The entire thing was discussed today.”
In time, the drug steering committee would likely come before the City and County to present an outline of its goals and objectives, Conder said.
