Allen County commissioners passed a resolution on Tuesday morning authorizing the county to employ a law firm on their behalf in potential litigation against contributors of the opioid addiction crisis.
Back in August, an Oklahoma judge ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for using deceptive marketing which contributed to the states opioid crisis. Purdue Pharma, the makers of Oxycontin, also agreed to pay Oklahoma $270 million in a settlement, and reached an agreement weeks ago to pay over $3 billion to several states and cities around the country.
Oklahoma had originally sued for $17.5 billion but the results of the suit opened the door for potential lawsuits from cities, counties and states.
Oklahoma and I believe New Jersey were the ones that really opened this up, Sheriff Bryan Murphy said.
PUBLIC WORKS director Mitch Garner presented commissioners with updated costs for the Old US-169/K224 project. The roads were heavily damaged due to increased traffic from the US-169 rebuild project.
The 10,280-foot stretch on the Southwind Trail overpass comes in at $74,016. The second project is a two-inch milling and overlay on K-224/Hawaii Road is set to cost $78,573. The third project runs from Monarch Bridge to Connecticut road and includes a two-inch mill and overlay. This will cost $296,053. The three projects total $456,142.20.
They will start in the next two to three weeks, but if Bettis Asphalt has any openings and the weather cooperates, they could begin sooner, Garner said.
County crews have already taken care of a few damaged roads themselves.
In other roadwork news, Garner said the Kansas Department of Transportation has a cost share program.
Julie, Lorenz, Kansas Secretary of Transportation, said the program allows us to leverage both state and local dollars to help address important transportation needs.
Garner said the county was currently set to contribute $225,000, or 25% of the $900,000 they could put into the program. Garner said he thought the more the county could contribute to the program, the greater the likelihood KDOT would favor its projects.
Commissioners then agreed to bump up their participation to $360,000 at 40%.
Garner reported ground work at the Humboldt Ambulance barn is near completion and they are preparing to start in Moran.
The site at Moran is going to be a little tricky. We have to wait for it to dry up out there because it is basically a mudhole at the moment, Garner said.
