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