County Supervisors to provide start-up capital for Recovery Center

Feb. 13—Rediscover Recovery Community Center Executive Director Dominic Capella's request on Monday for a portion of the county's opioid lawsuit settlement funding received the unanimous intent of the Clinton County Supervisors' support.

"I'm excited for you and for our community," Supervisor Erin George said. "I feel like this is the perfect opportunity to put these funds to good use."

The $2 million funding that the county last year began receiving in increments came from a multi-state lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors in which claims asserted that certain drug companies and pharmaceutical distributors engaged in misleading and fraudulent conduct.

The county currently has just over $300,000 available and will continue to receive the incremental funding through 2038. A committee working on strategies for the allocation of the funding has received a few requests. Capella's was recommended by the committee to be brought before the Supervisors due to the time sensitivity of his request.

The mission of the Center, Capella said, is to provide support, education, resources, and advocacy for people recovering from and affected by substance use disorder.

In Oct. of last year, the Center received federal non-profit status. In Jan. of this year, the State of Iowa gave Capella a notice of intent to award a $600,000 Recovery Community Center Expansion reimbursement grant administered through the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services toward the operations of the Center.

The administration of the three-year grant funding is to begin March 1, giving Capella until June 1 to have a location for it to be open and operational at least five days a week.

The drop-in center, Capella said, will provide peer recovery services for individuals throughout the county, including recovery coaching, daily peer support meetings, a telephone recovery support service, and regular social activities.

Expenditures of up to the amount of the award will be reimbursed by the state grant. Capella's request to the Supervisors, then, totals $50,000 of asking start-up capital.

Capella already provides weekly support to the inmates of Clinton County Jail.

"When I talk to these guys there, every week almost, it's the question of where do I go when I get out," he said. "I say I'm trying to work on having a place where you can go."

Clinton County Attorney Mike Wolf's office had raised prior concerns about the documentation of serving people with an opioid use disorder. Wolf said Monday that he is satisfied and reassured by the documentation that Capella said he plans to provide in the form of quarterly reports.

Supervisor Chairman Jim Irwin called the need for the Center "dire."

"Sitting on that [Eastern Iowa] Mental Health Region," Irwin said, "what we have happening in Clinton County is much [worse] than any place else in our five-county region."

The Supervisors will formally pass a resolution for the allocation of the requested funding at next week's Supervisors meeting.