Ells Forms Barnstable Working Group to Tackle Substance Abuse

Barnstable Town Manager Mark Ells

BARNSTABLE – Town Manager Mark Ells met with the town’s Substance Abuse Committee recently, and has formed a work group of municipal employees to address the issue further.

The collection of representatives from Barnstable Public Schools, Police and Community Services will primarily work on providing preventative measures to stop residents from making what Ells called “bad decisions.”

“Everybody that I’ve interacted with on this issue agrees that dealing with it prior to the addiction is obviously the most effective way to address this,” he said. “Many of the parents and youth in our community go from school right to recreation activities, so hopefully being on the same page interdepartmentally will yield positive results.”

Ells said the town will continue to apply to grants to provide more afterschool programming for the town’s students.

He said it will also be a priority to use Channels 22 and 18 for improving town-wide communication about the town’s efforts.