Neighbors, parents ask why LSC won’t block syringe exchange near schools

Parent: ‘I cannot imagine that anybody … thought that this was an OK thing to put around our children.’ LSC superintendent, board president say they trust health dept. to keep Gateway to Hope safe

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

Pushback started Monday night on Tippecanoe County’s plans to move Gateway to Hope, the county health department’s syringe exchange program, to a former pediatrician office at the corner of Ferry and North 23^rd streets.

Specifically, the protest came to the Lafayette School Corp. school board, with neighbors and parents wondering why board members and Superintendent Les Huddle weren’t more concerned about having the needle exchange a few blocks from Murdock Elementary, Sunnyside Intermediate School and the LSC administrative offices.

“Our superintendent had an opportunity to say, maybe we could reconsider this,” Brent Justice, who lives next to the proposed Gateway to Hope site, said during an LSC school board work session Monday night.

“He could have said the unknown impact on young, unattended children walking to school is uncertain, and if there’s an alternative we should consider it,” Justice said. “Instead, the superintendent’s statement was (that) we’re confident there will be no issues.”