PHOTO: La Plata County Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton during a recent election campaign.
“County views of the regulatory role of Public Health in each community are seemingly very different and have made the work of the SJBPH department at times challenging…”
— from the June 7, 2022, letter from the SJBPH Board of Health, recommending dissolution of the district.
In Part Two of this editorial series, we heard La Plata County Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton — speaking at the November 15 meeting of the La Plata BOCC — imply that she and her two fellow commissioners were simply following the recommendation made by San Juan Basin Public Health governing body, the seven-member Board of Health… a recommendation to dissolve the shared health district and require Archuleta County (and La Plata County) to create, and fund, separate public health agencies.
Quote:
“As a commissioner, I rely on the Board of Health volunteer citizens who give hours and hours of time and expertise. And they care about everybody. And I take what they say very seriously, and that board has spoken to us. They believe a dissolution is in the best interests of the public of both counties. And I agree…”
This concept — separate agencies — had been explored in Archuleta County in 2021, and the idea had been essentially dismissed by the Archuleta BOCC as ill-advised. Or so it seemed to me, as an interested spectator.
Our BOCC did not, however, actually vote to remain in the shared health district. Rather, our commissioners — Alvin Schaaf, Ronnie Maez, and Warren Brown — made no decision at all, but left the question dangling.
It was not until the early summer of 2022, in the midst of an apparently ongoing dissolution process, that the Archuleta commissioners actually spoke publicly in favor to remaining in the shared district.
Too little, too late, as we have seen.
But I find La Plata Commissioner Porter-Norton’s comments — implying that she is merely following the recommendations from the Board of Health — to be disingenuous. You can download the Board of Health’s June 7 letter here. That letter does indeed recommended dissolution.
Commissioner Porter-Norton was not merely an indifferent observer of the process. In April 2022, acting as a member of the Board of Health, she was already arguing vigorously in favor of dissolution.
Here’s a quote from an article by reporter Josh Pike in the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN, regarding the April 28 Board of Health meeting.
[La Plata Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton] then stated that she was “reading the tea leaves” that “the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners desires to not be in this relationship anymore. … By what they say in meetings, by what they do not say in meetings, by their forming of an investigative committee, which I have said to all three of them is perfectly their right to do. … I think the pandemic has driven a giant wedge between our two counties … I think one thing that is very difficult for us, as the La Plata County commissioners, is to see this dragging on and on and on and on…”
The problem is, of course, that “this” was not dragging on and on and on. The Archuleta County commissioners had — at the very least — stopped talking about dissolution, and had requested monthly updates from the San Juan Basin Public Health staff.
And the staff was providing those monthly updates. The conflicts seemed to be on a preliminary path to resolution.
It was not the Archuleta County BOCC that was continuing the argument, in April 2022… it was Commissioner Porter-Norton herself who was driving the wedge between the two counties.
More Porter-Norton quotes from SUN reporter Josh Pike’s article:
“We believe in the basic things public health is for, such as vaccines, let’s just say it. Such as masks, let’s just say it. Now, these things have thrown a giant wedge in our ability to … have a unified front.”
“And, I just want to put these on the table because … we do not want the situation to go on much longer. … I feel like what is happening is every time there is a meeting in Archuleta County, there are new innuendos, there are new ways that our staff are attacked, quite frankly. … We can have some very serious debates and disagreements about public health issues, but we can’t as the La Plata Board of County Commissioners let this go on much longer. I think it’s corrosive to our credibility and it’s corrosive to our government…”
“…What we want to do is to bring forth a recommendation that we split apart. I’m going to be blunt.”
In the interests of speaking frankly, Commissioner Porter-Norton was — in my humble opinion — spitting venom at the April 28 Board of Health meeting. The Archuleta BOCC was not spreading innuendos at their meetings, (although members of the public may have done so), nor were the commissioners coming up with new ways to attack the SJBPH staff. Quite the opposite. Our commissioners were, in April 2022, making a concerted effort to heal the disagreements over public health policy that had arisen between SJBPH and the Archuleta BOCC, largely as the result of philosophical differences over the COVID response.
In fact, the two communities — the people, the constituents of the two counties — were not so very different in their feelings about the COVID crisis, in spite of one community leaning Democrat and one leaning Republican.
For example, about 80% of La Plata County residents received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.
About 70% of Archuleta County residents received at least one dose of COVID vaccine.
Yes, there’s a difference. But nothing that seems to justify the (multi-million dollar?) burden — now placed upon the Archuleta County taxpayers by the La Plata County Commissioners — to stand up an independent public health agency over the next 13 months.
To say nothing of the political distractions caused by such a requirement.
I’m thinking this morning of some comments made by a local taxpayer — massage therapist Christa Laos — at an Archuleta BOCC meeting in November 2021. She noted that, unlike the commissioners and the County employees present, she did not have a government job during the COVID pandemic.
“So my livelihood depended upon my client base. And I serve people from both sides of the aisle, you know. So I had to find a way to make both sides feel comfortable, to come to me. I didn’t have the freedom to choose a ‘side’. And during that time, it was kind of delicate. I felt like I had both a mom and a dad… between you guys, and San Juan Basin Public Health…
“You might get a divorce, and you say it might be cheaper. But in a divorce, it’s rarely ever cheaper…
“… It’s so sticky, and these decisions you guys are making affect so many people. I know many people, in many industries, who are understaffed. Police. Medical. EMS. Restaurants. They are all understaffed, and burdened. They are good people, but they are burdened by the demand. It’s more than what they can handle…
“…So under this new circumstance. if you guys do get a divorce… will the County office here, will it be understaffed too… even though it has good people working for it? Is it really going to save us money? Or not?…”