We’re talking this week about power, and its peaceful transfer. As opposed to its violent transfer… and as opposed to people clinging to power, sometimes self-righteously.
I recall seeing a translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s book, The Second Sex, on my father’s bookshelf, back in the 1960s, alongside a novel by Mme. de Beauvoir’s longtime partner and fellow philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre: Nausea, and another novel, The Stranger, by one of their friends, Albert Camus.
Not everyone approved of Mme. de Beauvoir’s book, when it was originally published in France in 1949, as Le Deuxième Sexe.
The Catholic Church’s Vatican-based leadership condemned the book, and included it in the Church’s list of prohibited books, known as Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The book remained banned until the policy of prohibition itself was abolished in 1966. That fact, all by itself, would make the book worth reading, in my opinion.
Mme. de Beauvoir attended a Catholic school as a child, but came to reject Christianity in her teens, and lived out the rest of her life as an atheist.
I knew, back in the 1960s, that my father was interested in ‘existentialism’ — whatever the heck that was? — but I never had a chance to discuss this particular philosophy with him while he was alive. I wish we’d had that conversation.
At any rate, now that I’m semi-retired, with some time on my hands, I have a chance to understand my father a bit better. (And maybe, understand myself a bit better.)
We’ll get back to existentialism later. And religion.
We’re watching some interesting power dynamics unfolding here in the United States, and also in other places around the globe. Mass anti-government demonstrations are currently taking place in France, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, Tunisia, Nigeria, Germany…
Here in the U.S. our former president, Donald Trump, entered a courtroom in New York for an arraignment hearing, and pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The counts had been handed down by a grand jury. The charges relate to money allegedly paid to various people with knowledge of potentially damaging information about Donald Trump’s past behavior, and the payments might qualify as felonies because of their timing — during an election campaign.
Judge Juan Merchan said he didn’t impose a gag order on the former president, stating that such an order would be the most serious and restrictive option… doubly so for a political candidate. But the judge didn’t rule out a gag order in the future. He said at Tuesday’s hearing that Trump and potential witnesses should refrain from statements — say, on social media — that might incite violence or unrest, and to avoid words or conduct that undermine the rule of law. The judge said if he saw such posts in the future, he might change his mind.
It’s not at all clear whether the indictments, and the trial’s eventual outcome, will help or hinder Trump’s current presidential campaign.
On January 20, 2020, Joe Biden accepted the duties of U.S. President, in spite of attempts by certain people, on January 6, to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Donald Trump acknowledged the upcoming transition for the first time on January 7, but then announced that he would not attend the inauguration of the new president. When told that Trump would not attend the ceremony, president-elect Biden reportedly stated, “One of the few things he and I have ever agreed on. It’s a good thing, him not showing up.”
The former president did, however, show up for his arraignment hearing.
Here in Archuleta County, we have a peaceful transfer of power going on. The San Juan Basin Public Health district (SJBPH) is being dissolved, and Archuleta County is standing up an independent public health department. The governmental power to oversee Archuleta County public health issues currently resides in the seven-member ‘Board of Health’ at SJBPH, along with its executive director and staff. The district, during its final year of operation, is proposing to spend about $8 million ensuring our health. Almost exactly half of that money will come from state and federal grants.
Below is a chart of how SJBPH has been spending its money since 2021, and how it plans to spend its funding this year. As we can see, the district spent slightly more than $3 million trying to deal with the COVID crisis in 2021, and plans to spend about $700,000 on COVID programs this year. The Board of Health has authorized about $1.9 million to be spent this year on ‘Organizational Competencies’.
I’m not sure, as I write this morning, what “Organizational Competencies” might be. Staff training, perhaps? I looked through SJBPH’s annual reports from 2015 through 2021 (the most recent year available) and could not find any mention of “organizational competencies” in any of those reports.
At any rate, the power invested in SJBPH is being peacefully transferred to two new agencies: The La Plata County Public Health Department and the Archuleta County Public Health Department.
La Plata is advertising for a Public Health Director, and the advertisement reads, in part:
The Public Health Department has a budget approval of $940,000 in 2023 for organizational and start-up purposes. Beginning in 2024, the base budget is estimated at approximately $4.8 Million, which includes approximately $1.2 Million in anticipated direct County funding allocation and the remainder from CDPHE and other funders. Projected FTEs are between 29-70.
The Archuleta County advertisement for a Transitional Public Health Director, on Indeed.com, does not mention a budget, but I’ve heard the number $2 million mentioned in BOCC meetings.
There are sometimes hiccups in a power transfer.
Yesterday, in Part Two, I summarized some concerns expressed by the Archuleta County Public Health Department Transitional Advisory Committee during their meeting on Monday. The committee members were concerned that the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners had an item on their Tuesday agenda:
Consideration Of Resolution 2023-_____ Establishing The Archuleta County Public Health Agency.
This resolution establishes the County Public Health Department and a transitional Board of Health.
The proposed resolution authorized a future Board of Health — which every Colorado county is required to have — consisting of “two Commissioners and either three or five members appointed to five-year terms…”
The resolution also stated that the director of the new Public Health Department would be selected by the County Manager.
The Advisory Committee, however, had recommended a Board of Health consisting of one Commissioner and four qualified community members. The Advisory Committee was also concerned about the apparent conflict between Colorado CRS 25-1-508 — granting the authority to hire the Public Health Director to the Board of Health — and yesterday’s proposed resolution, granting that authority to the County Manager.
At yesterday’s BOCC meeting, four citizens stepped up to testify in opposition to the proposed resolution, and to urge the BOCC to sit down with the Advisory Committee and discuss the differences of opinion.
Following the citizen testimony, the BOCC voted unanimously to table the resolution and to meet with the Advisory Committee next Tuesday morning, to share ideas about the best possible resolution.