��ɫ��

Burke County Manager Brian Epley often talks about the importance of governmental transparency and of public trust in local officials. So, let’s review what recently happened to the authority of our Board of Health and Board of Social Services.

County Chairman Jeff Brittain has said that for about a decade our commissioners have been thinking about assuming the authority of both boards and having both the health department and the department of social services report to Mr. Epley, instead of to their boards. A 2012 law provided eight different ways to do this.

But no one heard about this until June 25, when Mr. Epley informed the directors of both departments in his office. Next, on July 20 he announced in The Paper that the change would likely take place 30 days later. This was the quickest allowable implementation under the 2012 law. Instead of providing a chance for input, Mr. Epley gave the first full explanation of what was happening about a week later in a presentation to both boards.

I attended the August Board of Health meeting over Zoom. In my opinion, Mr. Epley provided no justification for change whatsoever. Instead, he merely reviewed past county actions and future plans.

His lone example of possible improvement boiled down to a miscommunication: The health director had failed to use the correct format for a new report. But Mr. Epley could already speak directly to the health director on such matters and could already expect compliance. By contrast, if Mr. Epley felt he needed to discipline the health director, he would have to go through the Board of Health. That would clearly be less efficient.

Board of Health members looked stunned and demoralized. One person said that the board had once done a “fee use study,” but the commissioners ignored that study entirely and made a political decision. Mr. Epley adroitly pointed out that this case would operate exactly the same in the future. True.

Also, glaringly beside the point: If the commissioners were given final say in every case, then politics would surely influence even more health policies!

The health director said that a health department job applicant once had told him that she had been fired for giving a commissioner’s restaurant a low health rating. Mr. Epley said that he’d never heard of anything like that in all his years of government. The health director insisted that he’d heard many such stories.

I don’t think any current Burke County commissioner would ever do such a thing. The issue is, might some commissioner be tempted, especially if he felt wronged? This isn’t a personal issue. It’s a good government issue, something we Americans have always rightly prided ourselves on taking very seriously.

At the subsequent public hearing, the room was filled with concerned citizens, people lining both walls and crouching low in the back. This time, Mr. Epley talked only in general terms of the need for “efficiency and county operational alignment,” and of departments “operating in separate silos.” As before, he mentioned no specific policy changes.

This empty presentation was followed by 15 citizens all asking the board to please delay the vote and allow public debate. Three of them were local doctors. On Aug. 1, the North Carolina Journal of Medicine published a study finding that fears of politics influencing health policy were “largely realized,” when commissioners took control. Why couldn’t Mr. Epley achieve alignment now, without assuming disciplinary power? Why hadn’t the public been informed earlier?

Chairman Brittain responded to all this by calmly observing that both formerly empowered boards would continue to serve in an advisory capacity. And then the commissioners proceeded to bequeath unto themselves all the rights, powers, and responsibilities of both boards, by a 4-1 vote.

So, the issue had been decided and surely long ago. Surely that public hearing was a mere formality — a scrupulous observance of the letter of the law but not of its spirit.

Rob Nelson

��ɫ��