The Christian County Public Health Department met on Wednesday evening for an emergency board meeting. Public comments were moved to the end of the meeting to allow for things to be explained beforehand.

Tier 3 mitigations were discussed. Christian County Board member Vicki McMahon explained why she called for the meeting expressing concern for some of the closed businesses.

Dr. Terry Cunnington of the Christian County Health Board said that some of the concerns for the Board were the deaths and extent of the spread of the virus in the area along with hospital bed availability.

Christian County State’s Attorney Mike Havera addressed a lot of the concerns that people have about what his department will and won’t enforce. Havera said that by law during a disaster declaration, the IDPH is in charge of the local health departments and has supervisory authority. 

Havera continued by saying that the health department would have to prove that contact tracing came from the offending establishment. Of course, that brings up the big discussion of liquor and food licenses.  Around the state, everyone is doing it a little differently, but Havera says that the County Board or local municipalities have the power to pass and amend the orders to issue licenses so they could put in more restrictive rules if necessary. 

Public Health Director Greg Seiders explained some of the processes and how the order would go for taking a license. The Health Board will always try to find a way to seek compliance before punishments. 

The general consensus from the meeting was that if stronger mitigations were wanted, it would have to be approved at a county, city, or municipality level. However, the IDPH has control over rules during an emergency which has caused all kinds of head-scratching among local officials. Many small business owners were on hand in support of small businesses.
 

Listen to the entire meeting here: