Board of Health and County Council meet again to attempt to address reopening

— by Minor Lile, Orcas Issues reporter —

The May 15 special meeting of the San Juan County Board of Health was called so that the Board of Health and County Council could review the letter of request for a variance from the Governor’s phased opening approach that Public Health Officer Dr. Frank James had promised earlier in the week (see previous story).

The meeting began with an extended public comment period. With only one or two exceptions, the comments were notable for their expression of respectful appreciation for the difficult decisions that public officials are having to make at this unique and challenging time. In all, more than 30 public comments were offered. While a significant majority of the comments were from County residents opposed to moving more quickly into Phase 2 of the reopening process, the interests and concerns of local businesses and citizens in favor of the variance request were also well represented.

After the initial public comment period, the tone of the meeting shifted considerably when Dr. James informed the Board of Health that he hadn’t yet completed the letter and that it probably wouldn’t be available until sometime next week. “I’d hoped,” Dr. James said, “to come before you today to say we’re ready to go to phase 2, but we’re not.”

Council member Jamie Stephens seemed particularly frustrated by this, saying that he was ‘highly disappointed’ and adding “I don’t know what changed between Monday and today, but we’ve got an awful lot of horse power sitting here twiddling our thumbs”.

Dr. James was apologetic, but also firm in his view that the County was ‘not quite there yet’ in terms of being ready to proceed with the variance request. As the basis for his reasoning, he cited the need for letters from regional hospitals affirming their ability to provide for Covid-19 patients from the County, the need for adequate testing supplies, which he said should be available by the weekend and the need for more fully trained nursing staff in the County to provide contact tracing and other support services.

Dr. James also affirmed that as an aspect of the process of ‘getting there,’ he intends to issue an order requiring facial coverings in public spaces and businesses during phase 2. Dr. James said that he expected to issue the order in time to take effect just before midnight on Friday, May 15.

While it was apparent that the members of the Board of Health had received the Public Health Officer’s pending order prior to the meeting, it was not available for public review at the time of the meeting. Nor, as of Sunday morning (May 17), had it yet been posted on the County website.

Given that the order has not yet been made public it is difficult to describe its contents, as there were several elements that were unclear during the discussion. However, one clear obstacle is that Sheriff Ron Krebs has advised Dr. James that the Sheriff’s department does not have the available personnel and other resources needed to enforce the order. According to Dr. James, it is therefore likely that business owners and their employees will be held responsible for enforcement and will also be subject to a misdemeanor charge if the order is not enforced. But this also presents difficulties. As Jamie Stephens asked, “Who’s going to issue the misdemeanor if the Sheriff isn’t able to devote the resources needed to enforce the rule?”

Ultimately, both the Board of Health and the County Council, with Mr. Stephens dissenting, voted to support the issuance of the facial covering order.

There was also discussion on the topic of re-opening transient accommodations. During this part of the meeting, much of the discussion was focused on the timing of reopening for general use. Jamie Stevens kept attempting to establish that the transient accommodations are not expected to more fully open until Phase 3 and that owners of these properties need to have as much advance notice of this as possible. The exact timing of Phase 3 has some flexibility depending on how the situation in the State and County develop. The earliest date envisioned would be in mid-June.

Dr James’s initial response to the point being raised by Mr. Stephens was framed in terms of waiting to see how effective the pending facial covering order turns out to be.  Eventually, assisted by a re-statement of the question by Bill Watson, Dr. James did seem to see the point Mr. Stephens was making and agreed that providing notice prior to the end of May was appropriate. Although this issue was not fully resolved at the meeting, Dr. James also expressed his interest in talking further with Mr. Stephens to come up with a workable solution.

The meeting was afflicted by an ongoing series of technical glitches, most of which had to do with people who had dialed in by Skype not muting the speaker on their phone or computer. For this reporter, these interruptions had both a comedic and a patience-testing aspect. In the later half of the two-hour meeting, the proceedings at one point ground to a complete halt as an un-muted caller began recounting nearly all that had happened up to that point in the meeting to another person in the room with them. Eventually, this sidebar report came to an end and the Board of Health meeting started back up.

For future reference, for those who do dial in to an upcoming meeting, “*6″(star 6) both mutes and unmutes your microphone. The appropriate protocol is to leave the microphone muted unless speaking.

At the end of the meeting, the review of the Public Health Officer’s letter was postponed until at least the week of May 18. A motion offered by Rick Hughes that “the Board of Health accepts Dr. James recommendation to request a variance, if given” failed for lack of a second. Mr. Hughes had offered a similar motion at the May 11 meeting that failed by a vote of 4-3.

Asked about this afterwards, Mr. Hughes said that in his view it is time for the County to move as quickly as possible to the ‘soft opening’ that is allowed in Phase 2. Noting that non-essential travel and the availability of transient accommodations are not allowed under Phase 2, Mr. Hughes said “we need to get the local economy going again. If some ‘essential’ businesses are allowed to be open, then other businesses should also have the ability to open safely. And we’ll see how it goes. If we need to shut things back down we can, but people who are out of work need to be able to get back on their feet.”

The next regular meeting of the Board of Health is scheduled for Wednesday, May 20. That meeting may or may not be held, depending on the status of the variance request letter being prepared by Dr. James.