Columbia council tussles over health officer post in contentious debate
An issue that has for months been bandied about on the Columbia mayoral campaign trail found its way to the city council on Tuesday.
District 2 Councilman Ed McDowell sparked discussion on whether the city should hire a chief health officer. For months, Sam Johnson, one of four candidates for mayor this year, has made the potential hiring of a municipal health chief one of the key planks in his campaign platform. McDowell has endorsed Johnson for mayor.
Such an officer would head up various health initiatives in the city, from dealing with pandemics to helping spearhead efforts against a number of diseases, such as AIDS, HIV or diabetes.
Council ultimately voted during Tuesday’s meeting to send the issue to the city’s administrative policy committee, and possibly bring it back to the full council for a vote in coming months. But first, council members traded a few barbs during Tuesday’s meeting.
McDowell noted there are a number of non-pandemic reasons he thinks the city could use a chief health officer, but was clear that COVID-19 is at the forefront of his mind currently.
“We need to do this,” McDowell said. “As you know, there are 10,000 (COVID) deaths in South Carolina related to COVID. Children are continuing to be diagnosed with COVID. There’s also the pandemic of diabetes that we have not talked about. There’s the pandemic of cancer. The pandemic of HIV. ... Persons are dying.”
At-large Councilman Howard Duvall countered that the chief health officer issue is political in nature, as it has been a topic on the mayoral campaign trail.
“We all know that it is a political question,” Duvall said. “One of the candidates in the mayor’s race has run on this. ... I’m not sure if I object to the position of a health officer as much as much as I object to it being interjected into the city council debates before the people vote in November.”
While Duvall hasn’t yet openly endorsed anyone in this fall’s mayoral race, he has given campaign donations to candidate and fellow council member Tameika Isaac Devine. Four people are running for mayor: Devine, Johnson, District 4 Councilman Daniel Rickenmann and former District 3 Councilman Moe Baddourah.
McDowell bristled at the idea that he was playing politics with the issue, telling Duvall he was “totally incorrect.”
“You’re raising the issue of this being a political issue for me,” McDowell said to Duvall. “It’s a health stance for me and several thousands of other folks. ... Folks are dying, Howard. Do you know that?”
In a campaign email Monday, Devine said the city should not “overextend our resources to hire a chief health officer when we already have the assets to fight the COVID-19 virus” and that she thinks “being a thoughtful steward of public dollars is paramount and creating new unnecessary positions ... is wasteful.”
On Tuesday, Devine told McDowell there was at least the appearance of campaign politics in the matter. She noted a press conference featuring Johnson and McDowell touting the issue in front of City Hall several months ago.
“Whether it’s political or not, the perception is that it is,” Devine said.
Rickenmann has previously said he wasn’t in favor of the city creating a chief health officer position. On Tuesday, he said he thinks the city needs to work closely with the many outside agencies in Columbia that focus on public health.
“One of the things I’ve discovered as this issue has come forth is that we haven’t reached out to the agencies here and engaged the folks who can do things today,” Rickenmann said. “And I think that’s our first step.”
Tuesday night after council voted to send the public health officer issue to committee, Johnson sent out a campaign email entitled “We Won Round 1” in which he touted the issue being moved along.
“The status quo is not good enough,” Johnson wrote. “We’re committed to bold and new ideas that move Columbia and all our families forward.”
Mayor Steve Benjamin has not yet committed one way or the other on the chief health officer issue. He said council could direct the city manager to hire a chief health officer, but he also introduced the idea of the city establishing a health commission, something he said council has the authority to do under state law.
But the mayor did say that Columbia has “never hesitated to be the tip of the spear” on various issues.
