Marion County Health Department Administrator Melissa Mallow provided an overview of the operations of the health department and its board members at Tuesday night’s county board meeting.
The presentation followed the county board’s earlier tabling of the reappointment of five board members after two members raised concerns about how they handled COVID-19 as well as if the appointments should be made as a group or individually.
One of those who raised the COVID concerns, Jack Riley, questioned why school students and teachers were required to wear masks when neither wanted to.
“Unfortunately, it was part of the Governor’s Executive Orders. Thus, the schools were following the rules and we were following the rules, yes,” Mallow responded.
“That’s the same as the county, we were following the rules,” Board Chair Debbie Smith added. “We didn’t know what the repercussions would be. They could pull our funds and we would have nothing to operate on. The sheriff has the responsibility of keeping it open or shutting it down. That’s his facility. We have to abide by the law and that is what he chose to do. It wasn’t the county board that did that.”
Board member Bill Henson, who is also an employee of the Sandoval School District, further explained the school situation.
“It was no fault of the Marion County Health Department for us wearing masks at that time because the schools chose to follow the Governor’s directive.”
Henson says the school’s policies were set by the State Board of Education.
County board member Dr. Creighton Engel, who is also the county’s representative on the health board, commended the health department’s response.
“Melissa took over it was Baptism by fire. No one knew what was going on. One thing that people have to understand is the level of stress that the department was on tracing calls every day, day after day after day after day. There was a flood of information and uncertainty about everything.”
Board member Judith Meeks Hakim also commended the health department for doing an excellent job and added she knew of another health department that didn’t follow the state rules and lost a lot of money.
Board member Sharon Woodward said the health department members brought up for reappointment had been done an injustice. She told fellow county board members if they had questions about the health department’s operations, they should go to the health board meetings and ask. Woodward added all of the nominees for the county board positions are qualified and serve without pay.
The county board is now set to take up the reappointment of the five health board members at its November 14th meeting. They are Dr. Elizabeth Franczyk, Kendra Taylor, Dr. Kyle Clark DDS, Michael Morton, and Dr. Seth Hahs.
Smith noted if county board members do not want to reappoint them, they will have the opportunity to nominate other candidates.
