SEE TRI-COUNTY

from Douglas County News Press 090921

handling of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. He frequently goes head-to-head with Tri-County Executive Director John Douglas in public meetings and has previously written the agency urging fewer COVID-19 precautions in schools, such as mask-wearing rules.

Bracken was named to step in for Zach Nannestad, whose resignation from the Tri-County Board of Health in late August marked the third time this year that Douglas County has lost one of its representatives on the board.

His appointment comes as Douglas County has been making moves to exit Tri-County and stand up its own public health agency amid opposition by the county’s elected leaders to some of Tri-County’s COVIDrelated mandates, most recently its ruling that people must wear a mask in school buildings.

Tri-County has provided public health services to Douglas County for 55 years and also served Arapahoe and Adams counties. Its ninemember board is made up of three representatives from each of the three counties, appointed by their commissioners.

Bracken was recently selected as chair of Douglas County’s public health advisory committee, which was established to help commissioners explore the future of public health services in the county.

Douglas County commissioners voted Sept. 1 to begin the process of forming their own health department. At press time, county commissioners were slated to take a vote on quitting the agency Sept. 7.

Unless and until the county appoints a new board of health, it would will still be under the purview of Tri-County Health, according to a county spokesperson.

Bracken’s appoinment came hours before an Aug. 30 Tri-County board meeting regarding masks. At that meeting, Tri-County’s board approved an indoor maskwearing requirement for all students and teachers in school and childcare settings.

Bracken and Dr. Linda Fielding, the only other Douglas County board of health representative present, both voted against the mask mandate, as did an Arapahoe County representative.

“This board is completely missing the mark on protecting the people that are vulnerable,” Bracken said in the meeting. “You are punishing the kids, the ones who can’t protect themselves, and I’m standing up for them right now.”

Also in that meeting, the board revoked a policy that allowed its three member counties to opt out of public health orders. That policy had been approved in November 2020 as part of a negotiation with the Douglas County commissioners, who had threatened to leave the health department. Following that agreement, the commissioners promised to stay with the agency until at least 2023.

It was a few days after the health board’s decision to end the opt-out policy that the Douglas County commissioners voted to begin forming their own department.

‘Driving their own agenda’

In resigning from the Tri-County Board of Health Aug. 26, Nannestad cited a confl ict of interest due to his job with the Douglas County School District, which is enforcing TriCounty’s mask mandate.

Bracken works as a consultant helping hospitals fi nd cost-saving measures, according to a resume he submitted for the county advisory committee.

In his application to join the committee, he wrote about frequent COVID-19 update meetings in which he “argued with the Tri-County Health Department based on the skewed data sets in and isolated information that was provided during these meetings.”

“Ultimately, Tri-County Health Department was not interested in adjusting their information, they were only interested in driving their own agenda,” he wrote.

In one council meeting, he said he believed Douglas, the head of TriCounty, had “dropped the ball.”

Before joining the public health advisory committee, Bracken joined other Douglas County elected offi cials in scrutinizing the Douglas County School District and public health offi cials for COVID-19 precautions. He has been a staunch supporter of leaving the wearing of masks in schools up to personal choice.

In an email that Bracken sent to Douglas County commissioners and school district leaders, which he provided to Colorado Community Media, he claimed that children were at lower risk for the virus and were less likely to spread COVID.

“Without sounding callous, it is time for folks to exercise their own personal responsibility,” he wrote.

Bracken said he sent the email before a more transmissible strain fi rst identifi ed in the U.K. began widely circulating.

Still, students should not be required to mask if they would also be required to quarantine when exposed to COVID-19 regardless of whether they wore face coverings, he told Colorado Community Media.

Bracken argued Tri-County Health was not standing behind its own data showing children were at less risk of severe illness from COVID-19 and pressed Dr. John Douglas, the Tri-County director, to push back against Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment COVID-safety requirements.

In the pandemic’s early months, Bracken criticized orders closing struggling businesses to in-person service. In May 2020, Bracken said he would patronize businesses that opened in defi ance of shutdowns, so long as they practiced social distancing. In December he attended anti-shutdown rallies in Castle Rock in support of local businesses.

Split commissioner vote

A spokesperson said that the county commissioners chose Bracken as an interim member because they wanted to ensure they had three board of health representatives for the Aug. 30 meeting but wanted to fully consider the appointment later.

The Douglas County commissioners approved Bracken in a 2-1 vote, with Commissioner Lora Thomas voting against the motion.

“I really hoped we would put someone on that board who had a medical background, a health care background, a background in a service that Tri-County Health supplies to our citizens,” she said. “If we end up in a situation where the county needs to form its own board of health quickly, I want to be sure that we are really demonstrating to citizens that we are serious about having subject matter experts on that board of health.”

Commissioner George Teal defended the appointment, saying he felt Bracken was “an ideal choice” in part because of his work with hospital administrations.

“Of all the elected offi cials that we have seen following the Tri-County meetings ever since COVID became a crisis here in Colorado, he’s been the most active,” Teal said. “He’s defi nitely been the most involved and outspoken, he’s asked a lot of the hard questions of Dr. Douglas and the other senior staff of TriCounty.”

Teal also said he believes Bracken could add “a healthy dose of professionalism” to the board and that he hopes to see the appointment made permanent.