The Hockley County Commissioner’s Court had a special meeting this morning to go over a series of items to come before them. There was to be a presentation from TxDOT by Adrian Mendoza in regards to surplus material allocation, but Mendoza informed the court beforehand that he was still awaiting information from Lubbock. As such, this item as tabled until next Monday. Senate Bill 476 requires all counties to establish a Sexual Assault Response Team. It also mandates that certain people must sit on said board, and as such it is proposed to be comprised of Phillip Bray with Covenant, District Attorney Angela Overman, Sheriff Ray Scifres, and Levelland Police Chief Albert Garcia. Additionally one member of the Star Care Team will be on the board as well, but these are just the positions required. Should that team feel as though they need new members, they may add those through the Commissioner’s Court. Hockley County will be creating a joint team with Cochran County, which will also add their Sheriff to the team.
What took the bulk of the meeting was a presentation by the Attorney General’s Office regarding the opioid crisis. They explained that in 2020 opioid related deaths rose 30% and reached an unprecedented 69K in the U.S. In July, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that settlements had been reached in court cases with the distributors and one manufacturer (Johnson & Johnson) of these drugs. The combined settlements could mean as much as 1.5 Billion dollars for Texas, and kick Johnson & Johnson out of the opioid production game for up to a decade. J&J will be enjoined from making any sort of opioids for 10 years, and distributors must establish a centralized clearing house to collect data and monitor for red flags. The reason this presentation was given was to persuade Hockley County to sign on to this release, making the county eligible to receive funds from these settlements. Signing on would mean the county forfeits its rights to sue these entities independently, but makes it eligible to receive direct payments of $56K from them, depending on allocation. Texas has 128 litigating subdivisions, and to join the release the county needs to sign on and execute releases as well as the Texas Term Sheets. After a brief discussion among the commissioner’s and Sheriff, the county decided it was in their best interest to agree to the terms, and the item was passed.
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