Tag: Lincoln County Board of Health

Community

Board of Health Recommended New Member, Appointed Officers

Sam

Since the board met via zoom, attendance was relatively straight forward. It did, however, require an installation (brief) of zoom.

The meeting began with the nomination of officers. Current Board Chair Jan Ivers mentioned a desire not to return as chair, but expressed doubts that anyone else would wish to take the position.

She and Josh Letcher (County Commissioner, representing District 3) were both nominated for board chair and the floor was opened for comment, which went as follows:

The first public comment came from DC Orr, of Libby. He began by remarking on the necessity of use of parliamentary procedure by the board chair, and suggesting it was an area in which Jan Ivers had been lacking as chair.

Jonathon Allen spoke next, suggested that officers should be chosen later, once a new member is appointed, since George (Jamison) stepped down.

Deb (presumably Debra Armstrong, board member representing Eureka) spoke next, in favor of Josh as board chair. She expressed some concerns about rules of order not being followed, not sticking with the agenda, etc.

Laura (presumably Laura Crismore representing Libby) inquired if it was necessary to follow the bylaws. In response to her question the bylaws were cited and the board seemed to conclude following them was necessary.

Josh Letcher remarked that he appreciated being nominated and that he understood the frustration with the way meetings had been going. He also praised Jan Ivers for improving in her role as board chair. He concluded by commenting on the difficulties the current meeting schedule would cause him, given his need to travel if he were elected Board Chair.

Then Jan Ivers spoke, remarking that “Four years ago, no one wanted this position, so I took it”.

Jim Seifert (representing Troy) referenced a comment Josh Letcher had made previously about acting as a liaison between the board and the county commissioners, asking Josh to clarify his role on the board.

Josh Letcher replied that he did not remember the comment, but did remember an email, pointing out that the county doesn’t actually have a representative on the board from north county.

The Board, upon voting to appoint a board chair appeared to do so unanimously. Yes, Josh Letcher and the board member that nominated him both voted in favor of appointing the other candidate. Sara (Sarah Mertes, county representative out of the Libby area) was appointed as vice chair (3 votes to 2, with one abstaining. The other candidate was Debra Armstrong of Eureka). After the definition of secretary was read aloud from the bylaws, Jim Seifert accepted the nomination and was appointed secretary (no other nominations).

Board Recommendation: The board interviewed 6 candidates, rating them using a rubric (not provided the public). Interviews were in alphabetical order

  • Scott Bernard.
    • Scott Bernard lives in Eureka. He is a Eureka town councilmen with training in Hazmat and emergency response. He has experience in the American Red Cross as well as time as a Volunteer Fire Fighter, in addition to the training he received during his time with the army.
    • When asked about his reasons for wanting to be on the board, he advocated diverse backgrounds and experience in board members.
    • When asked his opinions about the pandemic response, he stated he had mixed feelings.
  • Anne German
    • Ann German is of the Libby Area. She was very blunt that she should not be appointed in order to represent North County, and would defer to someone from North Lincoln County (were that what the board was seeking- this was not confirmed to be the case), though she is interested in serving if another opening occurs.
  • Robin Gray,
    • Robin Gray is a native Montanan, born in Hamilton. She has 43 years in education, a degree in Elementary Ed, and a Masters in Education (and administration?). She referenced some of her time as a superintendent. She stated that she has prior board experience (listing several boards) and remarked that she brings a “team atmosphere”
    • On the pandemic response, she said she would have liked more communication or more ongoing communication on the pandemic, so that the board could promote factual information.
  • Latimer Hoke
    • Latimer was the youngest of the candidates. He has a bachelors of science and secondary Ed, a masters of science in education. He has been an EMT for 11 years, and a member of the ski patrol for 10. He has spent the last 8 years as a teacher in Eureka. He remarked that his board experience more limited than the other members, since he’d had less time to accumulate it. He has been on the ambulance board in Eureka.
    • Asked his opinion on the pandemic response, he remarked that he has observed a lot of passing the buck and not leading by example.
  • Patty Kincheloe
    • Patty Kincheloe chose Montana rather than being born here. Her degree is in education. She has a Masters in Educational Leadership and was a principal for a few years. She’s spent 30 years in the public school and 5 years in an alternative school. She currently substitutes at Chrysalis. Patty Kincheloe has spent 18 years with the ambulance, and worked with children with fetal alcohol.
    • On the pandemic response, she stated that she believes that we should wear masks when we’re in a spot people feel uncomfortable
  • Jeff Peterson
    • Jeff Peterson has a PhD in Health Communication. This would be his first community board, he’s been on several academic boards
    • On the Pandemic: He stated that it certainly could have been handled better, coordination from top down could have been better. Peterson remarked that there had been a lot of community passion around this issue which could have been better harnessed.
    • Jeff Peterson believes that his job and specialty on the board would be to “help people find appropriate information and the sources we can all agree on and translate that”

The board discussed the candidates briefly. It came down to Patty Kincheloe vs Jeff Peterson, with what sounded like 4 votes in favor of Jeff Peterson. The recommendation will go to the Commissioners, who have final say.

At 7:40 (it began at 6), the meeting finally moved the the next agenda item and the board went on to hear from Jeff Peterson (yes, the same Jeff Peterson) who’s working on contract with the Health Department. Peterson clarified that he would not serve on the board until his contract was over.

But, you don’t have to take my word for it. Go watch the whole thing! Fair warning, though, it’s about 3 hours. Or- read about the rest of the meeting.

Community

Board of Health Meeting: Reports, Vaccines, and more

Sam

In a meeting that lasted the better part of three hours, the board of health appointed officers, selected a candidate to recommend to the commissioners for replacing a board member, heard reports and answered questions.

After an hour and forty minutes (when the audience had, admittedly, started to thin substantially), reports began.

Team 56: It’s not entirely clear why Team 56 reports to the health board, or what their precise relationship to the board is. However, it was reported to the board that Team 56 delivered masks to high schools, “spread kindness, not covid” posters, as well as delivered thank you notes and balloon bouquets to the ER staff.

Covid Response Report: Jeff Peterson (yes, this is the same Jeff Peterson that the board recommended the commissioners appoint to the board) reported on the work he’s doing for the county (on contract). It sounds as though most of Peterson’s time has been spent filming videos for the website. The current focus is on frequently asked questions and “translating the science”.

Medical Provider Summary: Provided by board member Dr. Sara Mertes. Many of the first responders have received their first vaccine and the second will be administered soon. The vaccine used was the Moderna vaccine, and they hope to be administering vaccines to the community in the next several weeks.

Covid 19- Vaccinations– The county health department is working with clinics and hospital to put together a central list so that when vaccines arrive, people will be on the list for vaccines. They are prioritizing age and underlying conditions. The public can call the health department to get on the list, and the county will ask only for age and name (though information about a qualifying health condition could be provided). While there is a CDC program people can opt into for tracking symptoms/side-effects, it’s totally optional.

They were very blunt on the current states of vaccines in Lincoln County. They county has no idea how many vaccines we will receive, where they will arrive, or when. We can, however, expect that it will be the Moderna vaccine.

ChemPACK plan– No changes, but the plan is reviewed annually. This is part of the emergency medical counter measure plan. The chempack is a CDC owned cache containing nerve agent antidotes. Board approved the plan.

Liaison (George Jamison, county representative, leaving the board in order to devote more time as a volunteer with the asbestos program ): The PEN regulation– property valuation notification process- was formally adopted last March. One of the provisions was deferment on when it would become effective. This evening’s action item was to make it effective, as of February 1st. This regulation will impact the folks down in the Libby Asbestos Superfund Site.

Health Officer: Dr. Black spoke. He stated that while vaccines are not that far away, it’ll take time to get enough people vaccinated in the community. Dr. Black imagined looking at people’s faces with out masks in 6 or 7 months, but says we won’t be there until we get 80% of people vaccinated. He thinks that a high participation in vaccination will be necessary in order to get back to normal.

At 8:40, Jim Seifert discussed the rating system he’d proposed at the last meeting. He had decided not to put it on the agenda. One reason is that the health department is already overwhelmed and he didn’t want to add to their burden. He says he still believes that if one hospitalization or one death would be prevented, a rating system would be worthwhile. However, implementation would take several months and the vaccine is coming out.

Proposed update to operating procedures– tabled (It’s getting late. The room is cold)

Public Comment:

DC Orr: DC Orr critiqued Dr. Black’s response to someone’s question on vaccine safety (Dr. Black responded to a question by telling the person asking to read the vaccine studies). DC Orr suggests that Dr. Black could present on the topic. He also noted that the board is not familiar with its bylaws and did not follow the rules of order. He suggests they read a handbook on board membership. He then asked why Team 56, not being a governmental unit, was on the Agenda. Quoting Jim Seifert at the previous meeting, he described Seifert’s words as “demonizing” the community and called for him to apologize.

Trista Gillmore: Trista Gillmore, as Lincoln County Public Health Nurse would like to answer people’s questions about mRNA vaccines and provided her email (she may need a few days to answer questions): tgilmore@lincolncounty.org

Diane Watson: Diane Watson noted that the website for the county health department states that it says the public has 7 days to submit questions if they want them discussed at the meeting. She asked when the agenda and minutes would be posted?

The board clarified that the agenda must be posted 48 hours (2 days) in advance of the meeting but will be posted at least the Friday before the meeting). Draft minutes are always posted with the agenda.

While there seemed to be some confusion on how to answer the question (the problem of having to ask questions 7 days in advance of the meeting with the agenda not yet posted). Finally, Jan Ivers (board chair) explained that it is what the board is looking at with revising operating procedure number 2.

With that, the meeting was adjourned. The meeting times have been changed to 6 pm on Tuesdays, the second Tuesday of the month. The next meeting will be February 9th.

Community, County Ordinances

Board of Health to Meet Wednesday (1/13)

Sam

The Lincoln County Board of Health is meeting Wednesday? To discuss what? A number of things, among them changing the procedures for public comment. Of course, it’s not entirely clear from the Agenda what precisely the board is expecting to talk about, but there are number of action items included.

The Lincoln County Board of Health will meet this Wednesday, at 6PM. The Agenda can be found here. It will be possible to attend via zoom. At the end of the last meeting (informational), Board Member Jim Seifert described a proposal for grading businesses. The meeting closed with Board Chair Jan Ivers remarking that the proposal would probably be discussed at the next meeting.

Looking at the agenda:

New Business (all action items): Nominate Officers, Set meeting schedule, Board Recommendation. No details beyond that, so it’s entirely unclear what exactly the board expects to be making a recommendation on.

Approval of Minutes

Program Reports: Community, Public Health, Environmental Health, Solid Waste and Recycling, Asbestos Resource Program.

Community:
The first report is “Mental Health Coalition”. It’s not clear what this is, but the only thing on the county website that matches that search is Best Beginnings. The second is “Team 56”. Team 56 is those folks who’ve been holding the facial recognition contests (Which, yes, being faceblind, I found to be in rather poor taste). They can be found on facebook, where they’re not exactly widely popular (211 Followers, when the county population is over 19,000). The next report is “COVID Response Coordination & Communication Strategy, followed by Medical Provider Summary

Public Health:
The first report for public health is “COVID-19”, which is followed by an action item: “CHEMPACK plan”. No further details are included.

Focus Area Liaisons: Asbestos (two action items) and Groundwater. The Action items include a property evaluation notification regulation, and the appointment of liaisons for superfund area.

City Representative Reports: While there aren’t any details given, the city representatives on the Board of Health include: Laura Crismore (representing Libby), Jim Seifert (representing Troy), and Debra Armstrong (representing Eureka)

Health Officer Report: Again, no details, but the Health Officer is Dr. Brad Black. (Interestingly, this isn’t information available on the county website.)

Old Business: Proposed Update to Operating Procedure #2. Operating Procedure #2, found here, is for how the board will handle public comments. It makes for an interesting read. Did you know that under the current Operating Procedure, all public comments or correspondence with the board will be available for review by any member of the public.

Public Comment: Under the current operating procedures, people commenting are required to address the board as a whole, and are allowed 3 minutes (more at the discretion of the Board Chair). Comments can be cut off if they are “not relevant, personal attacks, or not presented in a respectful manner”

Well, should be interesting. It’s not entirely clear if Jim Seifert’s proposal will be discussed, indeed, there’s a fair bit that isn’t entirely clear. Regardless, Wednesday, at 6 PM.

Community, Laws, Ordinances & Regulations

Fair Representation on the County Board of Health?

Sam

Last week, we asked if the County Board of Health was a fair representation of the county. We’ve looked at how people are distributed in the county before, in “Searching Lincoln County Data” and “If LCHS District were a County” and have mostly compared high school districts (which is a handy way of splitting the county into three).

Splitting the Board of Health into representation by high school district:

High School District% of County Population% of Vote on Health Board
Libby50 %57.1 %
Eureka (LCHS)32 %28.6 %
Troy18 %14.3 %

Considering things in terms of the high school districts makes for a much fairer picture than looking at them in terms of Libby, Eureka and Troy- but three members of the board do represent Libby, Eureka and Troy, specifically. There are only three members (plus one county commissioner) available to represent the rest of the county.

Comparing the representation of Eureka, Libby and Troy to that of the rest of the county leaves a rather different picture:

Area% of PopulationBoard Representation
Eureka + Libby + Troy23.1 %Minimum of 3/7, or 42.9 %
The Rest of the County76.9 %Maximum of 4/7, or 57.1 %

Note that those are minimum and maximum values. The board is structured so that Eureka, Libby and Troy each get to appoint a representative, with the remaining 4 appointed by the County Commissioners. It is impossible, under the current structure, for Eureka, Libby and Troy to have less than 42.9% combined representation on the board.

Of course, as was evident in last week’s article, this is a fairly good deal for Troy and Eureka; Troy, with only 4.7% of the county population is guaranteed 14.3% of the vote on the board. Eureka, with 5.2% of the county population gets the same. Libby, at 13.2% is only slightly under represented. (Of course, these are minimums. Nothing says the county commissioners can’t appoint four Libby residents to the board…)

The Lincoln County Board of Health next meets on the 13th of January. The agenda, when available, should be posted on the county website along with the zoom link.

Community

Board Member representing 4.7% of County Proposed County-Wide Grading of Businesses on Mask Compliance

Sam

How does someone representing 4.7% of the county end up proposing something for the entire county (with 14.3% of the voting power)? To examine that, we’ll look at the County Board of Health. But, if you’re more interested in what Mr. Seifert had to say about giving businesses A/B/C/D ratings, watch the video or read about the meeting!

Is the Lincoln County Board of Health a fair representation of Lincoln County? Are some sections of the county better represented than others? Under-representation has been a common complaint, and with Board Member Jim Seifert of Troy proposing county wide grading of businesses, it’s worth looking at.

Mr. Seifert is the Board Member appointed to represent Troy. In 2010 (alas, no 2020 census data yet) the area he represents had a population of 938. That’s 4.7% of the 19,980 people living in Lincoln County.

If representation on the County Board of Health were distributed evenly, by population, we would expect Mr. Seifert to have 4.7% of the vote. However, as one of a seven member board, he has 14.3% of the vote.

Looking at the Health Board as a whole (using the information available on the county website) we see:

Area% of County PopulationMembers on Board of Health% of Vote on Board of Health
Troy4.7%1 ( Jim Seifert)14.3 %
Eureka5.2%1 (Debra Armstrong)14.3 %
Libby13.2%4 (Jan Ivers, Laura Crismore, Sara Mertes, George Jamison)57.1 %
Elsewhere76.9 %Josh Letcher (West Kootenai) 14.3 %
Locations for members were taken from the phone book when not stated on the county’s website

The Board of Health doesn’t represent the population of Lincoln County evenly. Far more of the vote is associated with “urban” areas than rural.

The Board of Health, with three members designated to represent the urban areas, is designed to unequal in representation. That’s 42.9 % of the votes on the Board of Health going to represent 23.1% of the population!

The remaining board members are one county commissioner and three appointed as county representatives. Could the board be more equal, with respect to the rural areas? Definitely.

But what about regions? Is North county represented fairly? Is it possible for the board to represent the county fairly? Could the board be designed so that it did? Next week!

Community, Laws, Ordinances & Regulations

Lincoln County Board of Health Informative Meeting- Part 2

Sam

The County Board of Health met Wednesday, December 16th for an informative meeting. It wasn’t just an informative meeting though- it contained a proposal (one which the board anticipates discussing at the next meeting). The proposal (by Jim Seifert of Troy), while at the end of the meeting, was sufficiently surprising that we included it in part 1 last week.

The meeting began with Jan Ivers (board chair) discussing viruses and predicting another pandemic. Then, County Commissioner Mark Peck presented on the legal foundations of the Board of Health and gave a brief “how it all works” explanation. After, Kathi Hooper (Director of the County Health Department) explained the board’s budget.

Presentation about Testing: Lyn Thompson, a laboratory scientist, spoke via zoom about testing for the virus. She spoke with great enthusiasm about her topic, three tests: Molecular Diagnostic, Antigen test and Antibody test. According to Thompson, the four important characteristics of a lab test are: accuracy, timeliness, sensitivity, specificity.

A couple big things about the molecular part of it [testing], what it does not do: It does not tell you if the patient is infectious. It does not tell you if the patient is contagious. “

Lyn Thompson

Thompson clarified that the test itself simply detects or does not detect the virus. Antigen testing looks for a protein, rather than DNA, and is less specific and less sensitive but a quicker test. Antibody tests, meanwhile, are more useful for determining if someone has had a virus than if they are currently infectious.

A lot of these tests are only supposed to be done on symptomatic patients. Specifically the antigen test is really dependent on the person has to be symptomatic with covid-like symptoms in the first five days.”

Lyn Thompson

Thompson continued to explain that delaying an antigen test could result in a negative result, even in someone who had Covid-19, if they delayed long enough. Furthermore, an asymptomatic patient with Covid-19 could still have a negative result with an antigen test.

Presentation on Collaborative Medical Care: Sara (presumably Dr. Sara Mertes of Cabinet Peaks Medical Center, new member of the health board) spoke about the procedures used to both care for patients and avoid potential exposures. When a patient tests positive, the information is given to the Health Department, which does follow-up and contact tracing with the patient.

Cabinet Peaks Medical Center is able to send patients home with a monitor, which checks for drops in oxygen levels or tachycardia (rapid heart rate). Unfortunately, these monitors require WiFi or cell service, so are of limited utility.

Presentation on Contact Tracing: Jenn McCully, Lincoln County Public Health Manager, discussed what happens when the Health Department is notified of a covid case. Contact tracing assumes that someone is contagious either two days before symptoms, or two days before the positive test (whichever is sooner). Isolation is supposed to be at least 10 days, and to include being isolated from other household members. It will also include occasional calls and check-ins from the department.

Presentation on Vaccinations: Dr. Kelli Jarrett, of the Northwest Community Health Center, gave an overview about how vaccines work. Then, she went into more detail about the Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccine is an mRNA vaccine, which makes it somewhat different from the vaccines we are used to.

The reason that mRNA technology is actually really nice, especially in this circumstance is that it can be scaled up much faster than our current vaccine technology.”

Dr. Kelli Jarrett

Dr. Jarrett provided a detailed overview of the safety data for the Pfizer vaccine, and observed that the number of adverse reactions seen in the trials is comparable to commonly used vaccines (adverse reaction can include pain, fever or muscle aches; it needn’t be severe). The efficacy rate of the vaccine seems to be quite high.

The presentations wrapped up with contact information: Anyone with questions for specific presenters should contact Kathi Hooper, the director of the County Health Department.

Finally, the meeting closed with a comment from Jim, the Board of Health member representing Troy. Seifert proposed giving businesses an A/B/C/D rating, primarily based on mask wearing (both of employees and customers). His proposal seems to entail members of the county health department inspecting and rating businesses.

The Board of Health next meets on January 13th. According to Board Chair Jan Ivers, Seifert’s proposal will probably be on the agenda.

Community, Laws, Ordinances & Regulations

Lincoln County Board of Health Informative Meeting was Held Wednesday 12/16

Sam

Did a member of the Board of Health actually propose a “grading system” for local businesses, based on compliance? Where does the County Board of Health come from? What powers does it have?

First, some background: The Lincoln County Board of Health has seven members. It is chaired by Jan Ivers of Libby. Of the seven members, three are “Lincoln County Representatives”, another three represent Libby, Eureka and Troy, and the final member is a County Commissioner (at this time, Josh Letcher).

Wednesday’s meeting was for the purpose of informing the public, rather than deciding/voting on policy. It began at 6 pm, and could be attended via zoom. A full recording of the meeting is available here– it’s about an hour and 15 minutes. I’ll give the short version here, and do my best for accurate quotes (with the right names associated, but as I’m faceblind, mistakes do sometimes slip through).

The meeting was shared by DC Orr of Libby, whom I presume can be credited with the recording.

The meeting had 7 presenters, and began with an explanation by Board Chair Jan Ivers, about viruses and pandemics. Talking about pandemics, Ivers predicted another pandemic and listed some reasons.

There will probably, as soon as we get this one under management, there will probably be another pandemic in the future. And there are a couple reasons for this: Population growth. We have a lot more people, a lot more crowding. We’ve gone from agriculture/rural into higher density populations. There’s some deforestation due to needing more agricultural land. Modern travel. I mean we can go almost anywhere to home in 24 hours which means that organisms don’t have that far, or that long to go. Increased Trade due to imported foods, exotic pets. And Change in the weather patterns that makes a difference in when these viruses go into humans. Here we don’t have this problem as much, but lack of access to public health is a big issue as far as [coughing] virus”

Jan Ivers

The first presentation was by County Commissioner (District 1) Mark Peck on the topic of Organizational Structure. Peck remarked that “There’s a lot of confusion over who has what authorities”. Peck explained:

“Essentially, Montana Code Annotated 50-2-106 covers how health boards are formed. There’s a few different kinds of health boards… We chose a number of years ago to go with the city county health board model because it allows the three cities as well as the county to have joint representation and have representation for themselves on the board.

So essentially what that means is that at minimum you have to have a county commissioner. The city of Libby has one position that they can pick at large. The city of Troy has one they can pick at large. And The city of Eureka has one they can pick at large. And then we decided within the bylaws of the board, and this was a concurrence from the commissioners and the three city councils and mayors that the commissioners would have an additional three positions. So you’ve got four positions that are selected from the county commissioners and then one from each of the cities and that’s where the seven positions come from.”

Mark Peck

With three Board Members coming out of the cities, it makes sense to consider what percentage of the county population the cities are.

CityPopulationPercentage of County
Eureka10375.2%
Libby262813.2%
Troy9384.7%
All three460323.0%
The numbers are from the 2010 Census (the 2020 data isn’t out yet) the County population was 19,980

Basically, the three incorporated communities, with 23% of the county’s population are guaranteed 43% of the board membership.

Peck continued, discussing the County Health Board and the appointed Health Officer:

Know a lot of people think well the county commissioners, we can just do away with this board. Well, actually we can’t. We have to have concurrence of the three cities to do that. Very similar to, well, the cities can’t blow it up on their own either and that’s a check and balance to make sure we’ve got consistency.

So anyway the authority of the cities and commissioners in Title 50 is strictly to appoint the Health Board. The Health Board has its own set of authorities and regulations that the cities and county don’t have, because per law that’s been delegated down to the Health Board. And those responsibilities you’ll find them in Montana Code Annotated 50-2-116 and one of the first authorities and requirements of the health board is to appoint a health officer.

The health board has appointed Dr. Black as the county health officer. The county health officer, those authorities fall under 50-2-118 so it’s a different, although they’re very similar authorities, the health officer has unique authorities that the health board does not…

Mark Peck

Peck went on to answer several questions he had been asked by his constituents. Can the health board be reorganized or disbanded?

…Yes, in theory the health board can be reorganized but it’s not a matter of just the county commissioners doing it. We would have to have all three cities as well as the county commissioners agree to disband the board….

Mark Peck

Why isn’t the sheriff enforcing the mandates?

We still are in a state and a country of laws, and the sheriff can only enforce laws that he’s been given authority through Montana Code Annotated… the Sheriff does not have authority under title 50 to go arrest somebody or to enforce the Governor’s mandate. They can assist if there’s some type of an issue. But that’s why you’re seeing law enforcement agencies not running around enforcing this…”

Mark Peck

Is the health officer completely autonomous?

No, he isn’t. The health board could replace the health officer…”

Mark Peck

After Mark Peck finished, Kathi Hooper, Directer of the County Health Department began the second presentation of the evening. The topic was finances.

The finances of the Board of Health are really pretty simple. They have a small budget that’s approved annually by the commissioners. In the previous fiscal year which is July of 2019 through June of 2020 the Board of Health expenditures $15,790. And of that total 95% was professional services, including approximately $9,400 for legal services and $6,300 for local health officer. So far this fiscal year which started July 1st the Board of Health expenditures totaled $3,198.”

Kathi Hooper

If a business spent 57% of it’s budget on legal services, well, that might suggest some problems.

Skipping ahead a bit in my summary, towards the end of the meeting Health Board Member Jim Seifert (Representative of the City of Troy) spoke for the five or so minutes of the video below. Seifert outlined a proposal that did indeed involve giving businesses grades.

I want to bring up a proposal. What I want to do is I want to do exactly what the health department already does. The health department right now regulates restaurants and food establishments. I want to regulate public spaces for the same thing for our response to covid. And what that is, is we have three things that we can do that are positive. We can do masking, social distancing and hand washing. Well, it’s hard to monitoring hand washing because you can’t be there all the time, but the masks and the social distancings[sic] we can. And what I want to do is go to public places, excluding churches and excluding schools because they’re mandating their own, and set up a A/B/C/D rating for these establishments.”

Jim Seifert

Seifert stated that he would give an A+ rating to a business that makes everyone that comes in put on a mask, a business where all the employees wear masks (but they don’t greet people at the door and inform them to put on a mask) a B, with the grade lowering for incorrectly mask wearing. C rating would be for businesses in which only some employees where masks, and D rating for those businesses that do not where them.

Jim Seifert of Troy proposes a rating system for businesses

Who would enforce Seifert’s proposal? He was quick to say not the government, and not the police. Rather, Seifert states that he expects the citizens of Lincoln County to do the enforcement. He imagines businesses being rated on social media, and in the newspaper, signs placed on their doors, and these signs helping citizens to decide where to shop.

Now, Seifert is the board member that represents the city of Troy. The 2010 population of Troy was 938, or 4.7% of the county’s population. He certainly has ideas for the whole county though!

Seifert went on to talk about vaccines, stating that the idea that vaccines would be mandated (people would be forced to get them), is a propaganda conspiracy-theory.

“We don’t do that in the United States that I know of. And what I call that, is I call that gas-lighting.”

Jim Seifert

The meeting closed with the reminder that the next Board of Health meeting is the 13th of January (the second Wednesday of the month), and the thought that Seifert’s proposal will probably be on the agenda. Written Comments or questions to the board should be addressed to Kathi Hooper. While written comments are accepted at any time, they must be received a week in advance of the meeting to be addressed at that meeting. For a comment to be addressed at the next meeting, it should be sent in no later than January 6th.

Meeting Summary to continue in next week’s Mountain Ear. If you can’t wait- feel free to watch the whole thing (and write the rest of the summary- get in touch, we’ll post it!)