If Oran Crabtree has his way, there will be two Crabtree brothers serving as Scioto County Commissioners. Crabtree is facing off against long-time commissioner Bryan Davis in this May’s primary election. His brother Keith is taking aim at the seat held by Scottie Powell.
Crabtree has lived his whole life in the area and says his family has been here for generations. His goal is to ensure that county remains a great place for his children and grandchildren to live and work. “Not only my children and grandchildren but the other children in the community.”
Crabtree worked in construction with his older brother, the late County Commissioner Mike Crabtree, and worked for H. J. Kaiser Engineering to construct the Zimmer Nuclear Power station in Cincinnati before earning a degree from Shawnee State University and going to work for the Federal Government. “I took care of veterans in our region. My responsibility was to make sure they were able to get everything they were entitled to for their service.”
Like his brother Keith Crabtree, Oran does not have much faith in the ability of rehab programs to help those with opioid addictions recover.
Prognosis is Poor
Crabtree has also worked with Medicaid service providers and with a chemical dependency unit in Columbus. “We had a multitude of people who came in with substance abuse problems and I worked with the psychosocial rehabilitative treatment program at the Veteran’s Hospital. I’m very familiar with treatment programs. Unfortunately, the prognosis isn’t very good. It’s actually poor. Within a 90 day period, these people relapse, that’s the statistics.”
He said families need to be involved in the recovery process. “The family has to be involved and take some responsibility. These people do not have a curable disease. It’s gonna be a lifetime struggle. I commend the people who are able to battle that fight every day.”
Oran says addiction is at the heart of the CPS crisis in Scioto County causing parents to neglect the basic needs of children. “It’s not something I would wish on anybody. It’s not that I don’t have compassion. I’ve mentored a lot of these people. I’ve provided them with employment. I’ve seen people who were in treatment and supposed to not be using. But the behavior is there. I’ve had things turn up missing and they won’t accept responsibility. They’ll deny it. I had one item that was missing and one of the other people in the program took a photo of it sitting on that person’s nightstand.”
Rehabs a Problem
Like his brother Keith, Oran thinks drug rehab centers are a problem. “We’ve accepted and we’ve promoted these rehab centers and they are oversaturating our economy. It’s become more expensive than what we’re able to take care of. Then we get in the hole and we’re not able to pay our bills and whatnot.”
Crabtree blames that on the large number of addicts requiring services in the area. He blames current local officials. “You have to put it at the feet of the people who are there. You don’t have to go out and do a model of this or that when you’re spending four times as much for services as the other counties per capita.”
He says throwing money at problems is not the solution. Crabtree pointed out the recent study showing that spikes in overdose deaths were directly tied to the arrival of stimulus checks. “In this county, we’ve hindered, thinking we were helping. Instead of giving people a hand up, they think that giving a handout is the way to go.”
He says the current system rewards people for being helpless. They are getting rewarded to be a liability to the community.”
Crabtree also has thoughts on how to get more local labor hired for county contracts. He said the county should only consider contractors who pay a prevailing union wage and not allow outsiders to undercut bids because they pay low wages. “This money would be recycled back into our community for the community to thrive. The big contractors are getting to keep all the money and not providing their employees any kind of decent wage.” He thanked local labor unions for supporting him and his brother in the election. “We are pro local labor.”
Crabtree criticized commissioners for not accepting a settlement in the opioid case and instead opting to pursue a larger award. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
County Headed Back Into The Red
He said his late brother had worked hard to get the county out of a fiscal emergency. “Now, we’ve got commissioners that’s putting us back in the red. I hate to say it this way, but they’re the ones in charge. These decisions fall at our feet. That’s why when I go over there on the very first day, I’m going to start fixing them. I’m going to take my brother in there when he’s elected with me and we’re gonna work with Cathy Coleman and we’re going to address these problems.”
Crabtree also called out Josh Lawson on his contention that recovering addicts could be a valuable asset to employers. “Employers are going to be looking for reliable, dependable, drug-free employees. There’s going to be this relapsing over and over. There’s only so much an employer can do. They can’t say for the next two weeks he’s going to be in treatment. These people that are in this rehab, they’re not all going to be able to succeed. Not everyone can be a rocket scientist. You can’t put them all in one field. You gotta take and use what you got.”