Commissioners disagree on health department spending
On Tuesday, September 15, the Davidson County Commissioners held one of their two monthly meetings. The meeting began with recognition of the 2020 North Carolina Department of Labor Safety Awards. This award was given to various departments of labor in Davidson County recognizing them for their achievement in safety standards.
Three applications for transportation grants were approved. The applications include funding for elderly transportation, administrative costs for the program, and combined capital for one bus replacement in 2031.
Following this, three rezoning requests were presented. One was to build a house on some property that required the land to be rezoned into medium capacity. The second was to rezone an area into an office and institutional district. Beth A. Salter desires to open a new location for her counseling service. They are planning to expand beyond their online counseling they have now. The final request was a rezoning of property to build a safe driveway for a new Dollar General. All of these requests were approved.
The meeting concluded with discussion, lasting over an hour, on the new health department funding. Although this funding was approved at the last meeting (read more here), Commissioner Todd Yates wanted to discuss alternative hiring options that cost less or gave the responsibilities to the private sector. He believes that the private sector should be giving more vaccines, so the health department doesn’t need all the money. Lillian Koontz, Davidson County Health Department director, countered explaining how they’ve had to cover all of the vaccines that the private sector wasn’t able to provide.
Commissioner Don Truell sided with Koontz and became frustrated with the debate stating, “We need to get past this pandemic. The way to get past it is to support our health department and to do all we can to stop this dreaded disease. And we aren’t. We are up here arguing.” The meeting ended with an abrupt adjournment.
