Highlands Ranch Herald 120221

Page 1

December 2, 2021

FREE

DOUGLAS COUNTY, COLORADO

A publication of

HighlandsRanchHerald.net

INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 16 | SPORTS: PAGE 38

Douglas County school chief forges ahead amid whirlwind Superintendent Wise: ‘Strong leaders lead through’ challenging times

BY ELLIOTT WENZLER EWENZLER@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

beds are being needlessly filled and citizens are starting to accept that help is out there for a bad day, week, month, or full-blown crisis, county leaders say. Shannon Breitzman, principal at Health Management Associates — a Denver-based independent national research and consulting firm specializing in publicly funded health care and human services policy — said Douglas County has set the example for Colorado and

As Denver, Adams, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties implement new indoor mask mandates amid rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Douglas County’s Board of Health is not considering such a move, according to a county spokesperson. During a Nov. 23 work session, the county commissioners — two of whom are also county health board members — were updated on the latest COVID-19 figures in the county, which at the time showed about 90 people in local hospitals for the disease and eight deaths so far that month. The county’s ICU capacity was 101% full and the inpatient beds were 91% occupied, according to the Tri-County Health Department’s data dashboard. “We are seeing breaking points in other systems around the state and the metro area,” County Commissioner George Teal said in the meeting. “I have an appreciation for the system here in Douglas County being stressed. There’s a big difference between a system being stressed versus a system breaking.” Teal and Commissioner Lora

SEE CRISIS, P33

SEE MANDATE, P41

Superintendent Corey Wise speaks with Becky Myers at a Douglas County School Board meeting. Myers will begin her first term as a school board director on Nov. 29.

SEE WISE, P2

PHOTO BY JESSICA GIBBS

Mental Health Initiative a step ahead in Douglas County Collaboration, years of planning went into government program BY THELMA GRIMES TGRIMES@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Many states, cities and counties find themselves ill prepared to deal with the growing mental health crisis in America, but a proactive move by Douglas County in 2014

Unlike its neighbors, county is passing on mask mandate Commissioner says hospital system stressed but not broken

BY JESSICA GIBBS JGIBBS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Roughly seven years ago, Corey Wise was making the leap from high school principal in the Douglas County School District to working in central administration, but he hoped the new role wasn’t his last stop in a public education system. One day, Wise said, he wanted to be a superintendent. Little could he know that opportunity would arrive in the middle of a pandemic. Months earlier, the health crisis had decimated public school budgets and drastically changed the way education was delivered.

VOLUME 34 | ISSUE 52

is helping the county meet needs today. The Douglas County Mental Health Initiative was created seven years ago in hopes that adults and youth experiencing mental illness, struggling with substance abuse, or going through a short-term crisis would get help, and not be thrown aside and ignored. Today, with the Mental Health Initiative (MHI) servng as an arm of county government, arrests of those struggling with mental illness are down, fewer hospitals

KEEPING IT LOCAL

Holiday market connects community vendors, shoppers P14

VALOR HEADS TO STATE Class 5A state title game set for Dec. 4

P38


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