Upheavel and Meltdown Continues at Local Health Department

[Willis]

As I've mentioned before, the situation at our local Health Department(the ones who approve those wells and septics on OUR Mountain) is chaotic. The upheaval continues full tilt. Though the pace of building may have slowed a tad due to the bursting of the housing bubble, this contentious and unsettling situation is occurring while houses appear to spring up willy nilly under questionable circumstances on the Blue Ridge and in other locales.

Today's Journal article linked
HERE (http://www.journal-news.net/News/articles.asp?articleID=12638)
is symptomatic of the potential Public Health danger resultant from goings-on in that department. Lest we forget, these overworked and underpaid officials are also the ones who minister to the medical needs of County residents and oversee a myriad of other programs including the evaluations of sanitation at our schools and the eateries(among many other things) we and our children frequent.

[ministerswife]

Wow! Those guys are tough. WV must be different from MD. I thought, in most states, you had a 30-day or so grace period when you resigned, just in case you wanted to be reinstated. Guess that's not the case in WV. I do feel that department is working under the stress of "overworked" and "understaffed". Too much is going on in this county not to improve that situation, and eventually the people will pay the price (at least that’s how I see it).

[jim surkamp]

Willis is right about dysfunction at the Board of Health needing to be corrected, for sure.

But the point overlooked in the account given is that Mr. Dehaven was given a chance to re-apply along with a range of other candidates for the vacant Directorship. Dr. Cannarella was not on the review committee. I was one of the persons on the review committee, being the County Commissioner who is non-voting liaision to the Board. We interviewed five applicants determined most qualified from a much larger pool of applicants. Each person was privately for up to an hour asked several dozen identical questions. Mr. Dehaven was one of the finalists. Speaking for myself, I was very favorable, initially, for Mr. Dehaven but after all the interviews were done, I concluded that Mr. Dehaven's personal hour-long interview convinced me that he was not the applicant who could provide what the Department really needed. - a strong leader. The unanimous preference of the review committee was another person who showed that capacity very clearly. Hence they were offered the position.

Your Commissioner.

Jim Surkamp