Opioids

Mariana Trujillo and Layal Bou Harfouch | 10.31.2025 1:46 PM

The town of Irvington in Essex County, New Jersey, was hit hard by the opioid crisis. In 2023, the county recorded 459 drug overdose deaths, 401 of them opioid-related—the most deaths of any county in the state. Despite this predicament, Irvington officials spent most of their more than $1 million share of opioid settlement funds not on treatment, prevention, or recovery programs, but on a pair of summer concerts with DJs, luxury trailers, and catered food.

The town billed the concerts as "Opioid Awareness Day," but they appeared designed more to promote awareness of Mayor Tony Vauss. His name topped the event's promotional materials, and, as the State Comptroller later noted, "no opioid-related information appeared on stage, though two large posters of Mayor Vauss flanked it." 

Those two concerts cost the township more than $630,000, according to the comptroller's investigation, with much of that money going to Antoine Richardson, a DJ who........

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