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The future of Douglas County with the Tri-County Health Department is again in question after a senior official told leaders in Castle Rock this week that the county “will continue” to create its own health agency. health by early 2023.
The news comes six months after Douglas County first said it would be leaving Tri-County Health following the agency’s decision to order the wearing of masks to stem the spread of COVID-19. The directive, along with others to shut down restaurants and businesses, was viewed by many residents of the conservative county south of Denver as authoritarian government folly.
Douglas County eased its stance in November, telling Tri-County Health it was rescinding its notice to withdraw from the agency it had been a part of for 73 years – at least until the end of 2022 – while still continuing to “examine its partnership. “
But on Tuesday, Castle Rock Town Manager Dave Corliss shared with City Council an update from Douglas County Director Doug DeBord, stating that “the current leadership to create a separate county health department of Douglas will continue, with a probable full implementation scheduled for January 1, 2023. “
“So this represents Doug’s understanding of the views of his county commissioners,” Corliss told the council.
Castle Rock’s elected leaders, who spent part of Tuesday’s meeting discussing the possibility of creating their own public health department for the city of 65,000, voted 6-1 to draft a resolution urging the county Douglas to “extradite” his breakup with Tri-County.
The dispute between Douglas County and Tri-County Health echoes the familiar push and pull that unfolded statewide in 2020 between largely Republican counties and health officials over how to strictly enforce restrictions and closures.
People have resisted orders to shut down businesses or wear masks – or openly defied in the Weld County case – on the grounds that they were onerous and responded to a dynamic situation.
“We don’t have a strategy and plan to reopen and remove the restrictions (COVID-19),” said Kevin Bracken, Councilor for Castle Rock. “Our businesses are closed, lives are ruined and we cannot get straight answers. People are upset – that’s why we want to get away from Tri-County. “
Douglas County played down the words of its county manager, telling the Denver Post that it was maintaining the position it took in November. The county has yet to do a feasibility analysis to “assess what best meets the public health needs of our citizens,” he said in a statement attributed to the three county commissioners.
Meanwhile, Tri-County deputy health director Jennifer Ludwig said she didn’t view DeBord’s assessment of the situation this week as a “renewed effort … to break away from the agency.”
“We knew from the start that it was likely that Douglas County would undertake an assessment to assess what will best meet the county’s public health needs,” she said.
Tension between Douglas County and the Tri-County Health Department, which provides public health services to more than 1.5 million people in Douglas, Arapahoe and Adams counties, erupted almost upon arrival of the coronavirus in March.
Just weeks after the start of the pandemic, lawmakers in Republican states in Douglas County urged commissioners to cut ties with Tri-County Health after the agency issued a stay-at-home order.
Then in May, C&C Coffee and Kitchen in Castle Rock opened its doors to a crowd of mostly maskless customers, in defiance of Colorado public health orders. The restaurant’s business license has been suspended and the owners have taken legal action against Governor Jared Polis and state health entities.
As of November, Tri-County Health temporarily closed five Douglas County restaurants that were open in violation of public health orders banning in-person meals.
These sentiments were again exposed at the Castle Rock City Council meeting this week, with Mayor Jason Gray saying that an independent county health department would be more responsive to the situation on the ground in Douglas County than ‘a sprawling agency like Tri-County Health.
“We have a healthier population, we don’t have a dense population, we have less population,” he said, comparing Douglas County to its neighbors to the north. “We are just different.”
Castle Rock City Councilor Tim Dietz said he would like to see city leaders from across Douglas County sit on the board of a new county health agency to “keep medical professionals under. control”.
“Ultimately, there has to be some kind of ‘enough is enough’,” he says. “I think people are a little bit exhausted and they really care about it and want something done. They want their businesses to be open. “
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