MORGANTOWN — For the second time in just over five months, Jonathan Dower has been selected to represent Region 4 on the West Virginia First Foundation.
The foundation is the 11-member board tasked with distributing hundreds of millions in opioid settlement dollars statewide.
Dower was initially appointed to the position in May to fill the unexpired term of Jonathan Board. Board resigned the seat two months earlier when he was tapped to serve as the foundation’s executive director.
During a meeting conducted Tuesday morning by the Monongalia County Commission, Dower was unanimously reappointed to a three-year term by a small number of designees representing a handful of the 13 counties and approximately 70 municipalities included in Region 4.
Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom said seven counties and seven municipalities participated in the meeting.
Dower was the only nominee.
He said he’s ready to get back to work.
“The things that we do in these first couple years of the foundation being formed will certainly point the compass needle toward where the foundation is going to go. From my view, it’s exceptionally important that we are very pragmatic and thoughtful on the development of the foundation and how we set precedent for future foundation boards,” Dower told The Dominion Post.
He lauded the recent hires of Jessicah Cross as the foundation’s chief of staff and Rachel Thaxton as chief of operations as necessary to help Board handle the day-to-day operations and support the foundation’s work.
And that work is picking up significantly.
The body is currently in possession of some 174 funding requests from across the state, including 33 from Region 4. The goal is to have those applications scored and announcements and awards finalized by the end of 2024.
While future funding will be based on a forthcoming statewide needs assessment, this initial round will divide dollars up evenly, sending up to $3.2 million to each of the six regions.
Within each region, those dollars are broken down to $800,000 for four target areas – diversion and interdiction programs, youth prevention and workforce development, child advocacy centers and neonatal abstinence syndrome programs, and transitional/recovery housing.
“At this point, we don’t have that roadmap, so this initial round of funding is really equitable across all the regions. They all have the same priorities and areas and they all have the same amount of funds,” Dower said. “As that needs assessment gets formalized, it will create a roadmap and we will see different distributions of funding.”
Dower has spent more than a decade working in addiction recovery.
He’s the executive director of WVSL Solutions, teaches on addiction at both the undergraduate and graduate level at WVU and has served on the Governor’s Task Force on Substance Abuse since 2018.
He’s also in long-term recovery.
“I’m very appreciative to all the representatives who reelected me today. It’s not lost on me the trust they’re putting in me and I intend to represent Region 4 extremely well as a foundation board member to ensure we get fair and equitable access to the funds we need to mitigate opioid use in our region,” he said.
