LISBON — A new committee headed by Columbiana County Health Commissioner Dr. Wesley Vins will review deaths in the county caused by drug overdoses and suicides as part of a plan to reduce both.

The county commissioners recently appointed Vins to establish a hybrid drug overdose fatality and suicide fatality review committee, giving the members of the committee access to documents and information about those deaths.

“With that comes responsibility and confidentiality,” Vins said after the meeting.

Both Vins and Columbiana County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board Executive Director Lori Colian attended the commissioners meeting to talk briefly about establishing the committee, which Vins hopes to get done in the first quarter of next year.

Besides himself, members of the committee will include Colian, a police officer or sheriff, and a licensed physician. The county coroner can also be involved. Vins will chair the committee and Colian will handle the administrative piece.

According to Vins, county Commissioner Tim Ginter was a member of the state legislature as a state representative when the law allowing the formation of the committee was passed. Because it’s tied to state law, Vins said this gives the committee some teeth.

During the commissioners’ meeting, Colian said this allows them to review the suicide and overdose death data so they can look for patterns and address those patterns and decrease the deaths. She shared some numbers, noting that out of 128 cases, 49 were natural and 38 were accidental with 26 drug overdoses, and there were 10 suicides, five homicides and two undetermined.

The idea for forming the committee came out of the county community health assessment, which identified behavioral health, obesity and chronic disease as the key health issues facing county residents. The community health improvement plan, which is the plan to tackle the health issues, includes the formation of the committee to study overdose and suicide deaths.

In other business, the commissioners approved a resolution for a fiber optic permit for Custom Utilicom/Charter Mid America LLC to work within the county road right of way on Knox School Road. enacted frost laws for several roads in Butler Township and approved the county engineer to negotiate the purchase of a portion of vacant land, 0.158 acres, in Kensington for the construction of a sanitary sewer pump station for the Kensington State Route 9 South Sanitary Sewer Extension project.

In matters recommended by Columbiana County Department of Job and Family Services Director Rachel Ketterman during a recent meeting, commissioners approved two contracts for the senior services levy from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 in 2026 for representative payee services from the Community Action Agency of Columbiana County with a spending ceiling of $25,000 and for extermination services from Economy Pest with a spending ceiling of $7,000.

Contracts were approved from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026 for the senior services levy for legal public guardian services for attorneys Dan Solmen ($30,000 ceiling), Richard Hoppel ($9,000) and Stephen Hill ($5,000). A senior services levy memorandum of understanding was approved with Probate Court for processing invoices from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026 with a spending ceiling of $72,000.

Other public guardian service contracts from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026 were approved for Lisa Williams ($6,500 ceiling), Karen Reaggle ($5,500), Kay Steffen ($2,000), Margaret Ketchum ($3,000), Debra Grimm ($4,000) and Denish Morlan-Bonish ($750).

The commissioners also announced there will be no board of commissioners meeting the week of Dec. 22, with the courthouse and government offices, including Municipal Court and the Title Department closing at noon Dec. 24. All county offices, including the courthouse, will be closed Dec. 26.

mgreier@mojonews.com