Submitted by Andrew Bowman
On March 26th, 2025, the Dauphin County Board of Commissioners held their second legislative meeting of the month to discuss ongoing issues, the administrative functions of the county, and how best to take action to improve the quality of life in Dauphin County. The matters discussed were largely administrative in nature, however there was special care taken to provide meaningful information to the public in attendance.
The majority of the meeting was spent discussing the fight against the opioid crisis in Dauphin County. The discussion opened with some good news in that the Cycle 2 of the Opioid Remediation Grant that Dauphin County has received has been extended to the end of 2025. The extension became necessary as the County and the Pennsylvania Opioid Trust had been at odds over project selection recently and this induced delays in dispersal of money to programs such as one designed to help mothers and children affected by opioid abuse. Dauphin County is hardly alone in this issue, as several counties have had projects flagged by the Opioid Trust and have gone through the appeals process to plead their case. While not all counties were successful in this process, Dauphin County did win their appeals, necessitating this extension.
The topic of discussion then turned to the new appointments to the Opioid Remediation Advisory Board, which plays an important role in selecting programs to receive these grant funds. This changing of the guard at the young board drew the ire of Board Secretary George Hartwick, who was not pleased with Charles Mazzitti losing his position on the board. According to the other commissioners, the reason for this was that Mr. Mazzitti had reached his term limit, which the Commissioners had instituted so that more people have an opportunity to participate in local government. This matter, which had carried over from last week’s workshop meeting, continued to escalate, prompting a recess to discuss the matter. When the recess ended, an amendment to expand the Opioid Remediation Advisory Board, by two members was added as an agenda item for the next legislative meeting. It should be noted that Mazzitti and Sullivan Employment Assistance Program, a company founded by Mazzitti that he has since retied from, received money from the Opioid Remediation Grant in this meeting. Other notable recipients include the Pennsylvania State University, Dauphin County ASPIRE, and the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Harrisburg.
To the end of public service, the meeting opened with a message from the Treasurer, who spoke about the Keystone Scholars Program, which provides investment seed money and post-secondary education and career saving plans for Pennsylvania families; and the Pennsylvania Able Savings Account program, which provides disabled Pennsylvanians a way to save money without affecting government benefits. The intersection of finance, education, and disability became very relevant during public comment later in the session, where a family used the opportunity to ask the commissioners for help in their application for a consolidate waiver for their son, who has a severe case of autism that requires more supervision and support than Central Dauphin East High School is able to allocate to the point of becoming a safety issue for the adolescent. The commissioners used this as an opportunity to highlight changes brought to the Consolidated Waiver program by Governor Shapiro, which allows recipients to be prioritized based on severity of needs rather than a simple “first in, first out” system that had thus been employed. The commissioners seemed rather concerned by this matter, and hopefully things are resolved for the family.
Finally, on a matter with more national implications, there are the ten Bhutanese Nepali refugees that were arrested by ICE earlier in March, one of whom lived in Dauphin County. At the meeting, Board Chairman Justin Douglas had words of praise for Warden Briggs of Dauphin County, who helped the families of these refugees arrange an out-of-hours visitation in Pike County after the families found that their relatives had been transported from a prison in Clearfield County. This is a developing story as it has now been reported that some of these refugees, who held green cards, have been deported. Per CBS 21:
Justin Douglas
This is simply persecution. And it doesn’t make us safer, it makes us smaller. We pride ourselves on being a nation of laws and rights, but if we turn our backs on refugees, who’ve done everything we asked, just because they’re different, what kind of America are we hoping to build? … My goal is to do everything in my power to keep our community safe, seek answers from those in leadership, and ensure that families are not left behind or forgotten.