BRADD partners with City of Bowling Green to receive funds for Anchor Project
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The Barren River Area Development District has partnered with the City of Bowling Green for an interlocal agreement where the City will delegate some of their opioid abatement funds to the Anchor Project.
“As the city was working on other issues, quality of life issues like homelessness, we started seeing all these connections to substance abuse and mental health… and so they launched a commission or a committee early to really start looking into that, and as their committee began to grow, other participants and stakeholders said ‘Hey, this is a city issue, but it’s also a regional issue,'” BRADD executive director Eric Sexton says.
Cities and counties can now join Bowling Green in delegating these funds to BRADD, as BG passed an ordinance during September 16th’s City Commission meeting.
“The city has agreed to allocate $725,000 initially… and an additional $725,000 coming in the following fiscal year to support the efforts of the mental health crisis intake center. So we worked closely with the city attorney, Hillary Hightower… and Hillary drafted an authorizing resolution and a fund sharing agreement that is unique to Bowling Green but can be replicated across our entire district,” Sexton says.
He adds he’s proud of the City of Bowling Green for being the first to take the initiative.
“Showing that leadership also shows that they want to not only help those within their city limits, but beyond that boundary… and that’s really what the Anchor Project is about, is how we can support all of our communities together,” Sexton says.
He also hopes this is just the beginning of other counties delegating some of their funds to parts of this project.
“Hopefully pulling these resources together will allow us to be able to help our communities in that way, so I think this will definitely spark some interest in the region. I think it’s really a shining moment in the BRADD region that we have these three elements coming together for our regional response to the opioid crisis and that it’s going to be unique and one of a kind of Kentucky,” Sexton says.
