“This was not a political issue.” Palmer installs first safe needle drop box

Some people might think that not much could be accomplished while serving a month-long term as an interim city councilman. Imran Chaudhry is not one of those people. He has been leading an effort to install a safe needle exchange site in Palmer for the past few years, and he finally saw his hard work come to fruition as a needle drop box was installed recently.

“This was not a political issue, it was a bipartisan effort” Chaudhry said of the support for the safe needle drop box.

Chaudhry served as an interim Palmer City council member from August to October 2019 when he submitted a proposal for a dirty needle cleanup. At the time, he said he was hopeful that a dirty needle drop site would increase the health and safety of Palmer residents and was pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction from the council and community, saying “I thought it was going to be really contentious, but it was the complete opposite.”

As the proposal moved forward, Chaudhry continued to speak at council meetings in favor of the initiative, often presenting facts and research on needle exchange and disposal.

He also sought support from health care professionals and Palmer City Police.

“The idea is to give them a place where they can safely dispose of their needles so that maybe we wouldn’t have needles in our parks or cul-de-sacs, in people’s driveways,” said Palmer police chief Dwayne Shelton in 2021.

Chaudhry remained undeterred, even as the COVID-19 pandemic meant funding was no longer available for the project. Instead, Chaudhry teamed up with Water Tower Outreach, a local group formed to provide direct impact outreach programs in and around Palmer.

Through collaboration with local businesses, TriJet Manufacturing donated design and construction of the secure needle dropbox, while Advanced Powder Coating donated other services to the project.

Local Palmer residents were also pivotal in making sure the needle drop box project was finished. And now, his hard work has paid off as the box has been installed.

When asked why this was so important that he kept pursuing the needle drop boxes long after he left the city council, Chaudhry said, “After talking with so many friends, and seeing up close the issue that this community had with improperly disposed syringes, I knew something needed to be done.”

Chaudhry wants to spread the word about this drop box being available for the whole community, not just one subsection-people suffering from substance abuse disorders.

“There are many people who use syringes for medical reasons who need a place to dispose of them properly. This will help tremendously.”

He is hopeful that other communities in Alaska and beyond will follow his lead and implement safe needle drop boxes in their towns. In fact, one goal Chaudhry has is to implement this project in his home country of Pakistan, saying, “This is something which can help the entire world.”

Chaudhry spent little more than a month as a member of the Palmer City council, and did not waste a second of it as he saw this project from beginning to end, even garnering the attention of Palmer City Manager John Moosey who, in 2021 noted that, “many citizens have ideas, but few are ‘doers.’”

“I truly believe that Palmer is one of the most beautiful cities in the nation, and we all play a part to keep it that way.”