Previously in this editorial series, we touched briefly on the (wacky?) resolution approved by the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners on November 17, 2020, which included the following list of seven demands for changes to the operations of our local health district, San Juan Basin Public Health. SJBPH is ultimately governed by Colorado state law, as applied by an appointed Board of Health. Under state law, (CRS 25-1-508), the Board of Health is appointed jointly by La Plata County and Archuleta County, through a committee made up of one BOCC member from each county.
The Board of Health (currently Ann Bruzzese, President; Karin Daniels, Vice President; Terryl Peterson, Treasurer; Bob Ledger; Shere Byrd; La Plata commissioner Gwen Lachelt; and Archuleta commissioner Alvin Schaaf) then hires an executive director, according to state law.
The executive director (currently Liane Jollon) then hires the staff. According to state law.
The Archuleta BOCC are telling us that they’re not happy, for some reason, with the way Colorado state law is written, and with the way the SJBPH Bylaws are written, and has proposed some ways to violate the law or amend the Bylaws. We wonder if this unhappiness is somehow related to political disagreements over, for example, the wearing of masks during the pandemic, and perhaps other SJBPH policies brought about by the COVID crisis.
The demands included in the November 17 resolution (which you can download here) are as follows:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF ARCHULETA COUNTY, COLORADO, AS FOLLOWS:
The Board hereby requests SJBPH to implement the following:
- The Board of representation shall be amended to allow the Boards of County Commissioners of La Plata and Archuleta Counties to appoint all members of SJBPH and the Board of Health.
- Board members of SJBPH shall have a term limit of eight continuous years.
- Board members of SJBPH shall be permitted to have an alternate serve when they cannot be present at SJBPH meetings.
- SJBPH shall have operational and accessible offices open in Archuleta County each business day of the week to serve citizens’ needs.
- SJBPH shall develop a Communications Improvement Plan to better serve the Board, citizens and business owners of Archuleta County.
- SJBPH shall segregate their annual budget in order to see how services are delivered to Archuleta County in relation to the revenues that are received by all sources.
- SJBPH shall prepare a comprehensive review of all expenses and revenues for the septic permit and inspection services provided to Archuleta County. In addition, SJBPH will provide an action plan to reduce fees and improve services to users.
Colorado state law specifically defines the terms of the Board of Health appointees as “five years”… and no “term limits” are mentioned in the state law… so Demand No. 2 suggests some rather incongruous term limits.
Demand No. 3 proposes an arrangement I have never seen exercised by any other board or commission in Archuleta County. Typically, if a board includes “alternate” members, those “alternates” are expected to attend all board meetings, so that they are thoroughly familiar with the issues, and are able to vote intelligently. It might seem that our BOCC is not concerned about intelligent voting.
Demand No. 4 asks for local business hours that already exist.
Yesterday in Part two, we discussed the (unreasonable?) demand that SJBPH “segregate their annual budget”. And in Part One, we discussed the possibility that SJBPH can reduce the cost of their septic permits and inspection services, in Part One. Unfortunately, those costs are driven, to some degree, by state law and Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment regulations — neither of which are particularly friendly to affordable solutions.
I’m not an attorney, nor an expert on government operations — nor am I, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on Colorado state law — but it would appear to me that the resolution approved by the Archuleta BOCC on November 17 was written by someone who knows even less about government operations and Colorado law than I do.
It would appear to me, that the only halfway-reasonable demand included in the November 17 resolution was No. 7. But I worry that the BOCC did not, in fact, intend the demands to be either legal or sensible. I worry that this list of unreasonable demands will be used, in the near future, to justify pulling the community out of the SJBPH district.
Such a withdrawal would likely be a financial and public health disaster. For Archuleta County to try and independently create a local public health agency — something they are required by Colorado law to provide — that would offer the same level of service currently provided by SJBPH, would cost the taxpayers much, much more than we are now contributing as our portion of SJBPH’s budget. (And it’s possible that our commissioner haven’t yet noticed that it’s becoming harder and harder to attract qualified working professionals to Archuleta County, due, at least in part, to the lack of housing in the community.)
Of course, this is the same BOCC that asked the voters, twice, to approve funding for an oversized county jail and “justice center”… and had their request rejected, twice… and then went ahead and put the taxpayers millions of dollars in debt to build the facilities anyway… while a fairly good-sized County Courthouse sits largely vacant and unused.
Folks, we probably should not be surprised by anything this particular BOCC does.