Opponents of safe injection sites can breathe a sigh of relief for the next six months — the Issaquah City Council voted at Monday’s meeting to enact a six-month moratorium on the injection sites within city limits.

According to the council’s agenda bill, a public hearing will be held at the Nov. 6 meeting to further discuss the moratorium.

A safe injection site, also called a community health engagement location, is a supervised location where users of illicit drugs can access clean needles, so as to prevent the spread of blood-borne diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. Additionally, medical personnel are on-hand in case of overdose and are available to give users information about treatment and rehab.

There are currently no CHELs in the U.S., but other countries around the world, such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Australia have had CHELs for years. Just two-and-a-half hours north of Seattle, the city of Vancouver, Canada operates two safe injection sites, with another in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey.

The council’s decision came the same day that a King County Superior Court ruled that I-27, a citizen-led initiative to ban safe injection sites in King County that was set for the February 2018 special election ballot, was invalid. This decision could be appealed by proponents of I-27.

That same afternoon, the King County Council voted to enact a counter-initiative if the I-27 decision is reversed on appeal and the initiative to ban CHELs is placed back on the ballot. The County Council’s initiative would see voters given the option to approve two CHELs in King County for three years — one in Seattle and an additional site in another city.

Also on Monday evening, the Bellevue City Council voted to ban safe injection sites permanently.

The conversation in Issaquah began at the Sept. 5 meeting, when the council opted out of enacting an outright ban on CHELs in city limits as other cities in the area had done, such as Auburn, Renton and Federal Way. The issue was sent to the Human Services Commission for further analysis. Monday’s meeting was the first time since then that the topic came before the council again.

The hot topic has sparked a loud and highly emotional debate among community members in Issaquah.

“We’ve received an enormous amount of correspondence … The community is definitely torn on this issue,” Deputy Council President Mary Lou Pauly stated at Monday’s meeting. “There is a majority that is saying, ‘Do something, and do something tonight.’ And there is a very concerned and vocal and supportive minority voice saying, ‘This could be a tool in the toolbox that could help with the opioid crisis.’”

“The emotions are real. We have definitely hit a nerve, and for good reason,” Councilmember Paul Winterstein said.

Public commentators asked the council to go further than the six-month moratorium and ban injection sites permanently.

“The concept of using city residents’ tax dollars to support drug users to continue their drug habit is repulsive to me. Utilization of illegal drugs is against the law — federal, state and local,” Joe Burner said. “How the city of Issaquah could even consider such support action is, in my opinion, reprehensible.”

Issaquah resident David Kappler said that no area of New York City was as scary as Vancouver, B.C., due to the high rate of heroin users the Canadian metropolis sees. He stated that Issaquah would never be a CHEL location, and therefore, there was no point discussing it and getting residents upset over nothing.

“It’s not gonna happen here. Why are we spending all this time stirring up the community?” he said. “It’s actually doing a disservice to people who are trying to solve and help with this problem.”

Issaquah resident Steve Pereira agreed with Kappler.

“Since there’s not currently anything on the books that would make Issaquah become a safe injection site, I don’t want to see us spending more time talking about it,” he said. “I agree, either do it or don’t do it, and then move on to more issues that need focus.”

During council deliberation, Councilmember Bill Ramos echoed this viewpoint, saying that there shouldn’t be a public discussion because no action had ever been taken to consider bringing a safe injection site to Issaquah in the first place.

“I’m sorry that that did happen, because some people were very stressed out by that. Because it is a very … complicated issue,” he said.

He said that the moratorium “stokes the fire” to bring back a highly controversial topic in six months.

“I don’t think we need to ban things that aren’t on the table to talk about,” Ramos said.

Councilmember Tola Marts disagreed, saying that while he personally was not a big fan of the idea of CHELs, he wanted to take the six months to do more research and see if safe injection sites could potentially save lives.

“I’m skeptical, but I think we owe it to understand the science, see if in fact there is a public safety benefit to considering CHEL sites,” Marts said, adding, “I don’t think we want to say absolutely positively no before we have taken a look at the science because we owe it to the people in the community who have told us this is important to them.”

“Let’s have the community conversation and let’s make sure that the council takes the break to … hear out the community conversation,” Pauly said. “I’m in favor of either a ban or a moratorium … We don’t know enough, we’re not ready.”

Council President Stacy Goodman said that she would not support “even the idea of a CHEL site unless the entire region — everybody in the region, all the cities, all the jurisdictions — took their fair share.”

“It’s an issue that every community is dealing with, it just makes no sense and I would never support CHEL sites unless everyone in the region was participating,” Goodman said, noting that she, like Pauly, would support either an outright ban or a moratorium.

Goodman said that she had received “dozens and dozens and dozens of emails” from residents concerned that a decision was being made on whether or not to set up a CHEL site in Issaquah.

“The vast majority of the comments that we’ve had from the community is no. I don’t think the vast majority of the community wants these,” Goodman said. “I am up here to represent the community. And I could not support this being in our toolbox until the region stood up and took responsibility.”

Councilmember Mariah Bettise said that she was “not in support of having a CHEL site in Issaquah” and agreed with her colleagues that either a ban or a moratorium was needed.

She later spoke in favor of a moratorium, noting that it “does give us time to pause … and hear more information from the public.”

“Let’s give that conversation the time it should have, give the community the time to have that conversation,” Winterstein said.

He hoped that the conversation would educate people and inspire them to get involved in community service opportunities, such as drug prevention groups.

Winterstein said that before actually ever establishing a CHEL, “The community absolutely has to want this … and it has to be really clear that this works and makes a difference.”

“I’m inclined to prohibit CHEL sites, but I’m not ready to do it tonight,” Marts said, noting that “we have had some residents and health care professionals tell us CHEL sites can save lives.”

“What this does is a pause,” Marts emphasized.

The bill passed 5-1, with Ramos voting nay.

Councilmember Eileen Barber was not present for the vote.