Livingston County 'strongly recommends' limits to health mandates

LIVINGSTON COUNTY — The Livingston County Board of Commissioners is sending a message to state and county health officials in the wake of COVID-19.

In the evening hours Monday, Sept. 11, the board approved a largely symbolic resolution that "strongly recommends" limiting emergency response measures during pandemics and epidemics.

Commissioners are advocating against measures like mask mandates and quarantines for healthy individuals, and calling for county boards to be granted greater authority to decide how long emergency measures remain in effect.

The discussion could put Livingston County Health Officer Matt Bolang in "a tough position," he said Monday after Commissioner Wes Nakagiri noted the board has authority to hire and fire its health officer.

"(It's) not an attack on a person, an attack on an organization, or an attack on a department," said Commissioner Roger Deaton, who helped draft the resolution. "It's to reassure the residents of our county that we have their back and that we will continue to support the Constitution."

The resolution goes on to list some of negative impacts of mandates on residents and businesses.

"[T]he Livingston County Board of Commissioners now recognizes that government-driven countermeasures to the COVID-19 pandemic have had significant adverse effects on the general welfare of residents, for example, by the closures and dissolution of small businesses, by the record inflation and economic devastation we are experiencing across our state, and by the deterioration of mental health among our young people," it reads.

Strong recommendations

"(The) Livingston County Board of Commissioners strongly recommends," the resolution states, "changes such as all state or local government emergency measures affecting or emanating from the Livingston County Health Department regarding a pandemic or epidemic shall expire after 28 calendar days ... and after expiration, only a two-thirds majority vote of the full (board) shall authorize a continuation of emergency measures, limited to a month-by-month basis."

The board is calling on the state legislature to amend the health code to provide that authority.

"[S]ince the following would be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States," the resolution continues, "the Livingston County Board of Commissioners strongly recommends that the Livingston County Health Department not impose, permit, or enforce vaccine mandates, mask mandates, mandate testing of asymptomatic persons, mandate a 'vaccine passport' type system, or assist in administrating the quarantining of healthy, asymptomatic individuals, recognizing that it is unlawful to force quarantine on any healthy resident without a judicial remedy in a court of law."

"I guess my concerns are, I'm just trying to get our department back to running our mandated services within the county and not keep bringing up the spotlight of COVID," Bolang said Monday.

"I understand ... the will of the board, the will of folks who spoke to the public tonight. I understand this community. It would have to be pretty extreme circumstances, locally anyway, for us to do anything outside the scope of what's presented here."

Commissioner Wes Nakagiri appeared to take aim at Bolang, anyway.

"The (state) statutes invest tremendous authority, unilateral authority, in the county health officer that is, in my view, more authority than is granted to the (board)," Nakagiri said.

"We hold the authority to hire and fire the health officer. It's authority that I prefer we don't have to exercise. I'm not out to fire anybody. I'm not out to threaten anybody's job, but I want to make it clear to the citizens listening in. That is authority we have."

While Nakagiri is correct, there are certain requirements in place for the firing of a health officer, according to a legal opinion from former state attorney general Mike Cox released in 2021. Counties can only remove their health officer if he/she was “incompetent to execute properly the duties of the office” or if he/she was “guilty of official misconduct or habitual or willful neglect of duty,” and the board could only pursue the latter two reasons after a hearing in which the health officer and his/her legal counsel could be heard.

Commissioner and Board Chair Dave Domas assured Bolang his job is not being threatened.

"Let me just jump in here for a second and assure our Health Director Matt Bolang, I've known you for many years, and you've given a great service to the citizens of this community and to the department, and it's not going to come up for a vote while I'm here," Domas said.

Some residents who spoke during the meeting asked the board to include stronger language to, as some put it, "draw a line in the sand," rather than make recommendations.

But attorney Rich McNulty, counsel for the county, said it's his legal opinion the resolution, as written with the phrase "strongly recommends," is legal because it advocates the position of the county board — rather than taking direct action.

It's a different story when a resolution expressly directs a health department to conflict with state health code, a line commissioners in Ottawa County have been straddling for months.

"To the extent you set up a procedure that violates state law with respect to the health code, the ramifications are losing funding and/or the state health department taking over the (county) health department or aspects of the health department and running it directly," McNulty said.

The county board passed the resolution in an 8-0 vote. Commissioner Martin Smith was absent.

— Contact reporter Jennifer Eberbach at jeberbach@livingstondaily.com.