By The Brown County Sheriff’s Office will use money from an opioid lawsuit settlement to add a padded jail cell.
Chief Deputy Jon Lemke and Deputy Sheriff Keith Baker requested permission to use an estimated $48,000 for the improvement during the Tuesday, April 1 county commission meeting at the Brown County Courthouse Annex.
Lemke said the padded cell will provide safety for jail staff as well as for inmates who are suffering from narcotic drug withdrawals along with co-occurring mental health conditions.
“It gives a safer environment for them to decompress,” he said. “They’re not gonna injure themselves on the concrete walls.”
MORE: $25K from Brown County opioid settlement going to treatment courts
Commission Chairman Duane Sutton asked Lemke if he thinks the padded cell is a justifiable use of the opioid money.
Lemke said he feels it fits within the guidelines of what the opioid settlement allows because it helps provide recovery support and other services.
Commissioners unanimously approved the request.
South Dakota is getting about $54 million as the result of a settlement from a national opioid lawsuit. It was against the nation’s three largest pharmaceutical distributors and one manufacturer and was filed because of how dangerous and deadly opioids can be. The suit claimed that pharmaceutical companies knew how addictive opioids were, yet oversupplied them.
Counties and cities in South Dakota get some of the settlement money.
Auditor Lynn Heupel said there’s about $87,000 left in Brown County’s opioid settlement fund.
Last year, commissioners approved spending $25,000 from the settlement to help with local treatment courts.
NorthWestern Energy rezoning requests approved
Commissioners approved rezoning requests from NorthWestern Energy, which plans to build a new energy generation station.
With approval, NorthWestern can finalize the purchase of two parcels of land for heavy industry use and one for ag preservation. The parcels are on 135th Street near existing NorthWestern Energy property and cover 166 acres.
MORE: Property rezoning request is first step in NorthWestern Energy development plans
NorthWestern has been considering a regular natural gas or liquified natural gas plant. Liquefied natural gas is natural gas that’s been cooled to a liquid state to make it easier and safer to store and transport. It allows for larger quantities of natural gas to be stored because the volume of natural gas in its liquid state is about 600 times less than its volume as a gas.
No members of the public spoke about the project during the commission meeting.
In other action, the commission:
- Set Tuesday, April 8 as a date to meet as the consolidated board of equalization to start the process of hearing property assessment challenges.
- Approved matters of routine business and met in executive session to discuss legal issues and contracts.