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St. Joseph County Commissioners reject CDC minority health grant, citing fear of COVID directives

South Bend Tribune - 10/19/2021

Oct. 20—St. Joseph County Commissioners on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would bring $3 million in federal grants for health outreach efforts to minority communities, saying they feared accepting the money could mean falling under federal COVID-19 restrictions.

The 2-1 vote came about a month after the Elkhart County Council voted unanimously against letting that county's health department receive the same grant, a move that factored into Elkhart County Health Officer Dr. Bethany Wait's decision to resign.

At Tuesday's meeting of the St. Joseph County commissioners, who serve as the government's executive branch, Health Officer Dr. Robert Einterz seemed frustrated as he tried to convince Commissioner Derek Dieter that the grant would not obligate the county to follow COVID-19 directives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The commissioners previously had authorized the health department to apply for the grant, which it won from the federal agency.

Einterz and Cassy White, the health department's director of health equity, epidemiology and data, told the commissioners that the grant would fund eight new community health workers, adding to three current such positions.

The positions would be aimed at reducing a broad range of health problems, including lead and blood pressure screenings, along with COVID-19 vaccinations and testing.

But Dieter told Einterz he saw as a "red flag" language in the grant application regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

It would require the county to "comply with existing and/or future directives and guidance from the Secretary regarding control and spread. You have to be in consultation and coordination with (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) and provide information on the condition of the individual COVID patient regardless of individual's own jurisdiction or appropriate health measures, social distancing, isolation," Dieter said, reading from the grant documents.

"This is interesting," Dieter continued, "...assist the United States government in implementation and enforcement of federal orders related to quarantine and isolation."

But Einterz replied that the actions have been happening since the pandemic began.

"These are things that we're already doing and obligated to do by the state of Indiana," Einterz said.

"No, not with the legislation in the House bill, you don't control that," Dieter replied, referring to a bill the Indiana General Assembly passed this year prohibiting county health officers from implementing pandemic emergency orders without approval from elected officials.

"Excuse me, all the activities that you've just articulated, we currently do and are obligated to do by the state of Indiana," Einterz repeated. "Indiana Department of Health, Gov. (Eric) Holcomb, we have to report to them. That is the current obligation that we have been doing."

"I disagree, but that's fine," Dieter said.

The commissioners' attorney, Jamie Woods, then said he spoke with the county health department's attorney, Marcell Lebbin, who told him the language Dieter read would impose new requirements on the county.

Einerz replied that the local health department doesn't have to be "in lock-step" with the state or CDC in case where "we feel it's inappropriate."

"We do inform the public, the school systems and others of CDC recommendations when they are pertinent to what we're doing," he said. "We do not necessarily follow those recommendations. When we share that, we can then share different advice. We have the freedom to do so."

Lebbin did not immediately return a voicemail or text message seeking comment.

Several Granger residents, some of whom vocally opposed a mask mandate at Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp. earlier this fall, spoke against the grant, saying they shared Dieter's fears.

"This grant ties us to the federal government in ways that are unclear and possibly causes us to cede some of our local control," said one resident, Amy Drake. "People are tired of the CDC. They're tired of watching them intervene into our lives and only making problems worse."

The bill accepting the grant had previously been approved by the St. Joseph County Council. Dieter, a Republican, voted to veto it, as did Republican Commissioner Deb Fleming.

Republican Commissioner Andy Kostielney did not support the veto. He said he also was concerned about the grant language but that the county could simply repay the grant if the county opted not to follow the guidance.

County Council President Rafael Morton, who voted for the bill as part of the 2021 budget, said he hopes all six council members will vote for it again and override the commissioners' veto.

Morton said he was working on scheduling the meeting, which must happen by Nov. 1 under state law concerning next year's budget.

Heidi Beidinger-Burnett, the health board president, after the meeting said she was "shocked" and "appalled" by the commissioners' veto.

"We're all frustrated," said Beidinger-Burnett, a biological sciences associate professor at the University of Notre Dame. "Politics has invaded the space of health. We're playing games with the health of our community."

Beidinger-Burnett said she was especially offended by Fleming's invocation of freedom.

"Our local health department should not be locked into pushing the federal CDC recommendations that they change, as far as having your vaccine mandates, your mask mandates," Fleming said to Einterz during the meeting. "Our country is freedom. We have freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the freedom means no vaccine or mask mandates."

Beidinger-Burnett called the remarks "gaslighting."

"In this country we have state and federal laws and the states have rights," she said. "This idea that we are blurring those lines like this is false narrative. That's not how things work. We work with the CDC all the time via the state health department and this has been going on for 100 years."

Dieter and several members of the public who spoke against the grant were also worried that the county would pick up the costs of the new health workers once the grant money is spent in three years.

But Einterz said the new hires would be told their positions could end in three years, while noting he was confident the department could find more money, from the CDC or philanthropic foundations, if health outcomes in minority communities improved.

"We will improve the health of this county," he told commissioners, "and in so doing unburden hospitals and in fact likely decrease the insurance costs we're now being charged as a county through the health promotion and disease prevention that we will accomplish through this grant."

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