How dysfunctional and goofy is the Livingston County Board of Commissioners?
We are days away from the retirement of Dianne McCormick, director of the Livingston County Health Department, and despite her recommendation that she be succeeded by her No. 2 — the well-respected and highly qualified Matt Bolang — some on the board are hemming and hawing about what to do.
While the choice seems clear-cut to me, the county board is thinking otherwise. Under the thrall of Chairman Wes Nakagiri, the commissioners can’t decide whether to promote a qualified, experienced and well-respected internal candidate, or conduct an inter-galactic search for someone with both the credentials to run a health department and the craziness to ignore science.
(News flash for the commissioners: that person doesn’t exist.)
This appointment isn’t like Nakagiri changing the rules to install his favorite pastor as Livingston County’s representative (and anti-DEI warrior) on the Huron-Clinton Metroparks Authority (you can read all about that by clicking here); the director of the health department actually needs to know what they’re doing.
Over my many years in Livingston County, we’ve been blessed with some of the best health department directors in the state: There was Bob Scranton, whose No. 2, Ted Westmeier, followed him. Westmeier was followed by his No. 2, Dianne McCormick. And McCormick is telling our commissioners that the best person to replace her is her No. 2, Matt Bolang.
And since I don’t know anything about running a health department, and since I have a ton of respect for McCormick, I believe her.
There’s another reason why the No. 2s at the health department usually take over for retiring directors: their education and years of solid, on-the-job expertise in Livingston County is invaluable to the serious job of running the health department.
The important community health work the health department does — inspect restaurants to be sure they are clean and that food is properly handled; test wells for contamination; monitor beaches for e coli; run the medical reserve corps; screen vision and hearing; help with insurance enrollment; vaccinate residents; test for TB; educate us; and work with other county departments, units of government, health facilities, and school districts — requires specific education and skills.
And here we have Matt Bolang, who knows Livingston County well, and who has been working on behalf of community health for years.
If his education, dedication, years of service, and the recommendation of his well-respected boss are not enough to convince you that he’s got the right stuff, then consider the opinion of two people well-known and well-respected by Livingston County: Drain Commissioner Brian Jonckheere and Sheriff Mike Murphy. Both men have won county-wide re-election time and again, and their work touches the lives of every single county resident. Both elected officials spoke out at the last county board meeting in support of Matt Bolang.
So, why in the world would the county board think the time and expense of a search for what will be a less-perfect-than-Bolang candidate is worth it?
Two words: MEDICAL FREEDOM.
The call to the public at the last meeting of the board was punctuated by several speakers who seemed to know each other, and who read the exact same talking points as to the qualifications necessary for the new director (which included a blood-oath commitment to medical freedom and the ability to “push back” against mandates).
“Medical freedom” is the newest buzzword of the anti-vaxer/anti-mask/COVID deniers, the ones who believe “my body, my choice,” applies in every situation except abortion.
That said, I read up on it, and here’s a good piece, written by the esteemed Dr. Peter Hotez, who explains that the tenets of medical freedom “espouse an aversion to government interference in personal or family health choices, often coupled to the counter promotion of a spectacular or miracle cure.”
So, it appears the question before our county commissioners is whether Livingston County residents deserve a medical director who believes in science, or one who believes instead in spectacular or miracle cures.
Nakagiri has an engineering degree from General Motors Institute in Flint (now known as Kettering University).
If the board were hiring a new county director of automotive engineering, I’d trust Nakagiri’s education and experience in the automotive field as to the best candidates, especially since I know about as much about automotive engineering as Nakagiri does about medicine and science.
But Livingston County is looking for a new leader of its health department, and for guidance on the best choice to make, I trust the word of the current director of the health department. I just can’t bring myself to trust the opinion of those who believe that there are qualified candidates who simultaneously believe in science and scoff at it.
And do we really want someone anti-science leading our county health department? If we do, perhaps we should hire Cruella DeVille to run the animal shelter.
Livingston County residents deserve a health department director who believes in science, not spectacular cures, miracles, or conspiracy theories. Anyone spouting off about medical freedom should not be driving Livingston County’s search for a new health director.
But here we are.
