TO: Mayor and City Council
THROUGH: Krishna Namburi, City Manager
FROM: Courtney Knox Busch, Assistant City Manager/Director for Strategy and Engagement
SUBJECT:
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Launching Engagement and Outreach for Drug Prevention, Treatment, and Enforcement in Salem
Ward(s): All Wards
Councilor(s): All Councilors
Neighborhood(s): All Neighborhoods
Result Area(s): Good Governance; Natural Environment Stewardship; Safe and Healthy Community; Safe, Reliable and Efficient Infrastructure; Strong and Diverse Economy; Welcoming and Livable Community.
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SUMMARY:
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Substance use remains a significant challenge impacting the health, safety, and livability of the Salem community, and is a high priority for residents. In response, the City has initiated a comprehensive Prevent, Treat, and Enforce strategy to better understand and strengthen the system of services addressing substance use.
Through ongoing engagement with community partners, the City is mapping existing resources, identifying service gaps, and clarifying roles across prevention, treatment, and enforcement efforts. Early findings highlight gaps in enforcement capacity and confirm that treatment services are largely outside the City’s core responsibilities, emphasizing the importance of partnerships.
The City has developed an initial assessment and engagement tool to guide this work and is leveraging existing collaborations, including Marion County and regional partners. This effort aims to align resources, enhance coordination, and avoid duplication while identifying opportunities for immediate and long-term action.
Staff will continue engagement efforts and return to Council with findings and recommendations to inform a coordinated strategy and next steps.
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ISSUE:
Information only.
RECOMMENDATION:
recommendation
Information only.
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FACTS AND FINDINGS:
Substance use continues to impact the health, safety, and livability of the Salem community, while placing increasing demands on City services. In FY 2024-25, the City of Salem began work in the Opioid prevention arena following receipt of funds from national Opioid manufacturer settlements.
Recent community survey results identified addressing drug-related issues as the second-highest priority for residents. During Council discussions on this issue, the City Manager emphasized the need to address this issue through a comprehensive Prevent, Treat, and Enforce approach. As part of this effort, the City is launching an engagement strategy to better understand and strengthen the system of drug prevention, treatment, and enforcement across the Salem community.
The goal of this work is to develop a comprehensive understanding of existing resources and services for Prevent, Treat, and Enforce, identify the agencies providing them, and assess how these efforts individually and collectively contribute to reducing substance use and improving health outcomes. This work will also identify gaps in services, particularly within the City’s role, and strategically align resources to address those gaps and achieve measurable outcomes.
Through a coordinated Prevent, Treat, and Enforce framework, the City aims to better align existing efforts, enhance collaboration, and avoid duplication of services.
Through conversations and direct engagement, the City will continue to build shared awareness of existing resources and a network of potential partners supporting the Prevent, Treat, and Enforce framework. As part of this engagement, staff will document the work being performed by service providers and begin identifying gaps within the system.
The information gathered will be brought back to Council to support discussion on where the City is best positioned to act and where partnerships can be leveraged to expand resources and better serve the community.
As a starting point, the City has identified agencies with which it already partners and collaborates. Each engagement will further expand awareness of key stakeholders and strengthen coordination across prevention, treatment, and enforcement efforts.
City staff have also identified gaps in the City’s current role, including a lack of drug enforcement officers and prevention education strategy.
Guide to Drug Prevention, Treatment, and Enforcement in Salem: Assessment and Engagement Tool
The draft engagement tool (Attachment 1) reflects an evolving understanding of the organizations and stakeholders involved in prevention, treatment, and enforcement efforts. As an engagement tool, it will continue to be refined based on input from community partners.
In its current form, the overarching purpose of the combined Prevent, Treat, and Enforce framework is to lower substance use and improve health in our community. This goal is illustrated at the top left of the framework, directly below the target.
Moving from left to right, each focus area includes a defined overall goal, presented in the first column (the darker shaded row), with corresponding key activities outlined below.
For example, the overall goal of Enforce activities is to:
• Increase seizures of illegal drugs to track trends and inform activity.
• Reduce drug-related violent crime; complaints of activity; repeat offenders (livability impacts from drug availability and use)
• Increase capacity for public safety
Primary measures associated with these activities are outlined below the overall goal: to reduce or eliminate the flow of drugs and hold those who are distributing accountable and deter others.
The City’s roles in Prevent, Treat, and Enforce are reflected in the second column. Using the Enforce example, the primary goal of the City’s Enforce activities is to Enforce Laws. Key City actors include the Police Department, along with the City’s advocacy efforts.
The third column shows the City’s initial understanding of partner roles. For the purposes of this graphic, partners are presented at a high level. As engagement continues, staff are building a compendium to list all actors with a brief description of the activities they perform. In Enforce, the County, State and Federal partners are shown with their activities aimed at enforcing laws, prosecuting and enacting reforms.
The far-right column is reserved for identified gaps. Initial conversations point to Enforce gaps as being jail space, limited public defenders, prosecutorial resources, and a need for officers to supplement prevention and enforcement work. These represent initial gaps, and not all fall within the City’s direct role. Through ongoing engagement, the City will continue to identify additional gaps and work with partners and the community to develop a coordinated strategy.
Progress to Date
As a City, we are already working collaboratively, benefiting from established partnerships and maintaining regular communication with Marion County Health and Human Services and the Marion County Sheriff’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program. Through an initial soft launch with these key partners, early mapping and engagement efforts indicate that treatment services, beyond initial emergency response, are not traditionally within the City’s core responsibilities.
Many mental health and substance use prevention activities are guided by the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP), a community-driven plan designed to improve overall health outcomes by aligning partners and community organizations. It is informed by the Community Health Assessment, which uses data and community input to identify priority health needs of our community. The current priorities for 2026-2030 include Access to Healthcare, Housing Stability, and Mental Health and Substance Use resources.
Some identified gaps present opportunities for new collaborations that can begin right away. For example, initial conversations identified a gap that led the City to convene regional recipients of opioid settlement funds to network and share information, organizations and school districts, in Marion and Polk Counties.
Next Steps. Additional engagement opportunities are underway. Staff will return to Council on May 26, 2026, with results from this engagement and recommended next steps.
BACKGROUND:
Staff have initiated broader conversations and engagement efforts to identify key actors and opportunities across drug prevention, treatment, and enforcement in Salem. Through the Prevent, Treat, and Enforce strategy, the City will develop a more comprehensive understanding of available resources to reduce substance use and improve health outcomes.
This engagement strategy will also provide a broader and deeper insight into existing gaps and opportunities, enabling the City to strategically reposition resources, where appropriate, to address those gaps.
Courtney Knox Busch
Assistant City Manager/Director for Strategy and Engagement
Attachments:
1. Initial draft Prevent, Treat and Enforce strategy