Beckley mayor cancels Inclusive Recovery City charter signing

Mar. 13—Beckley Mayor Rob Rappold announced Wednesday he was ending the city's involvement in the Inclusive Recovery City initiative following widespread opposition from the Beckley Common Council and residents.

In an email to The Register-Herald, Rappold said he believed the initiative would be a "significant step in the addiction battle," but given comments made at Tuesday's Beckley Common Council meeting opposing the move, he has decided to abandon the plan.

Rappold was scheduled to solidify the city's commitment to becoming an Inclusive Recovery City on March 19 with the signing of a charter.

The event was expected to bring in representatives from across the state, country and nation including the man behind the movement, David Best, the director of the Centre for Addiction Recovery Research at Leeds Trinity University in the United Kingdom.

Rappold said the signing has been canceled.

Jay Phillips, the executive director of Seed Sower, a residential recovery service provider, introduced the initiative to council at a meeting on Feb. 27. He said the purpose of an Inclusive Recovery City was to further recovery efforts by bringing recovery organizations together and to engage with the community to destigmatize substance use disorder through education.

In light of the canceled charter signing, Phillips said he will host a public information session on the Inclusive Recovery City model from 6-7 p.m. Monday and at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at the West Virginia University Institute of Technology auditorium on Neville Street in downtown Beckley.

Questions and concerns raised at Tuesday's Beckley council meeting against the Inclusive Recovery City included whether the city had enough resources to support the cause, if the move would attract people to the area with substance use disorders and why the Beckley Council was not consulted prior to the mayor's decision.

"I'm surprised that something with the magnitude of signing a charter did not come before council ... those are things that are typically done," said Beckley Common Council member Sherrie Hunter.

She added that this diversion from the normal practices caused a great deal of confusion among council members and left the public in the dark on a significant citywide initiative.

Prior to Rappold's decision to forgo the signing of the Inclusive Recovery City charter, Hunter said several council members had contacted Rappold requesting a special meeting and vote on the matter.

"This shows that citizens were listened to and their opinions did not fall upon deaf ears," Hunter said. "With the challenges our city has with panhandling, the homeless situation, it is the opinion of several people that being an (Inclusive Recovery City) would not be beneficial to the citizens of Beckley."

Rappold said he was "blindsided" by council's and the public's negative reaction to the Inclusive Recovery City movement, even going so far at Tuesday's council meeting to request names from council members of people who had reached out to them opposing the decision.

Beckley Council member Tom Sopher said his phone was going off like "crazy" with everyone reaching out against Beckley becoming an Inclusive Recovery City.

"He said last night that he wanted to know people who called who objected to it so all of us (on council) recommended giving him a call and I think he had to quit taking phone calls this morning," Sopher said.

Rappold said it was because of the "overwhelming opposition" that he chose to pull out of the Inclusive Recovery City charter signing.

"Although, when it was first presented to the administration and discussed early on with city council there didn't appear to be any opposition, but golly, I found out since our council meeting last night that there's considerable opposition, and I just can't ignore that," Rappold said.

Beckley would have been the first Inclusive Recovery City in the United States. The movement was initially started in the United Kingdom and includes 26 cities across Europe, the Balkans, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Email: jmoore@register-herald.com