What’s more dangerous to Sacramento County’s health officer? COVID or her bosses?
This is how hard it is to be the public health officer in Sacramento County: Sue Frost, the chair of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, drafted a controversial health resolution that, in the words of another supervisor, tells state health officials to “take a hike.”
As the Sacramento County public health officer, Dr. Olivia Kasirye is duty bound to follow state guidelines. So Frost’s resolution calling for the county to essentially break off from state oversight when responding to COVID-19 locally was like a stink bomb landing in Kasirye’s lap.
Did Frost consult with Kasirye before putting her “Healthy Communities Resolution” on the agenda for Tuesday’s board meeting?
Nope.
Shouldn’t the scientists be consulted when the politicians draft measures to address public health? Yes.
Can Frost’s snub of Kasirye be perceived as a political play at the expense of science and data? Yes. Wasn’t it downright disrespectful to try to pass a health resolution in the middle of a pandemic without consulting the county health officer?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
“It’s unfortunate that there is one member of the board who continues to try and play public health officer,” Supervisor Phil Serna said. “It takes time and energy away from the actual health professionals.”
But what makes Kasirye’s job so hard – besides leading the local health effort to contain a deadly pandemic – is that Tuesday’s farce wasn’t even close to being the worst thing that Sacramento County “leaders” have done to Kasirye and her department in the last 10 months since COVID-19 upended life in Sacramento County and around the world.
Sacramento County leaders flout COVID rules
Earlier this month, Frost, Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones and others gathered at a public event to drive home the point that Gov. Gavin Newsom has damaged California with his now-rescinded stay-at-home orders as local ICU’s filled up during the holidays.
So Kasirye, who has sometimes worked to exhaustion during the pandemic, like her staff, had to answer media questions about an event staged by county “leaders”clearly flouting local and state efforts to contain COVID-19.
““This three-day, in-person conference ... is in violation of state and local health orders and has the potential to become a super-spreader event,” Kasirye said in a prepared statement. “This is exceedingly troubling as we are experiencing an unprecedented number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Not only does this put the event attendees at risk, it puts the conference venue employees at risk of contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to their families.”
But that wasn’t even the worst example of Sacramento County leaders openly violating county health orders that Kasirye has spent months trying to persuade county residents to follow.
Who could forget in October, when we learned that Sacramento County CEO Nav Gill – now on paid leave pending an investigation of misconduct – was holding indoor, in-person meetings with this staff that were neither necessary nor urgent. Gill did not wear a mask. Others in attendance did not wear masks. Many did not socially distance. All of it was in violation of county health orders. At least one attendee later tested positive for COVID-19.
And it was all done while Kasirye’s former boss, Dr. Peter Beilenson, was in attendance, risking his own health in silence. Beilenson is the one who had to answer for this public relations disaster when The Sacramento Bee called him for comment on a Sunday afternoon.
Can you imagine? The Bee is calling you on a Sunday to ask if your boss violated the very health ordinance that is central to your mission as a scientist? Beilenson told the truth. He left in December – for family reasons, he said, not because of the job. Kasirye now led the no-win world of being the sole public face of a health department battling COVID-19 as well as her boss.
Nav Gill’s actions
But that wasn’t even the worst example of Sacramento County health leaders being put on the spot publicly to contradict Gill.
In August, we learned that Gill had funneled millions in federal relief money into Jones’ budget. The revelation caught everyone, including supervisors, by surprise. Gill kept telling people at the August meeting that there was “no impediment” to departments, including public health, to get what they needed to deal with COVID-19.
Who was the person who took the risk to contradict Gill in public? Kasirye.
“I have to disagree,” she said. “We did not get everything we need.”
Kasirye spoke and quiet followed. As I wrote then: “When she said this, it was like a secret had been revealed. In a sense, it had been.”
But this wasn’t even the worst secret about Gill to be revealed. Kasirye stood her ground three full months before we learned that Gill had been accused of sexism, racism and intimidation tactics – a “toxic culture” – spelled out in a two-page letter sent to county supervisors. It was signed by Kasirye and seven other women who held prominent health positions with the county now or recently.
Put yourself in Kasirye’s place: It’s your job to keep the public safe during a pandemic that, at last count, has killed more than 1,100 people in Sacramento County and infected almost 84,000. You desperately needed help in March when the county shut down. Federal relief money arrived in Sacramento in April but your health department didn’t receive large infusions of money until August because of all those months wasted under Gill’s leadership.
Then even when you get the money, Gill flouted your health order by staging in-person meetings, refusing to wear a mask. A source told The Bee when the mask/meeting fiasco went public that Gill had told people on his staff that he was sick of hearing about COVID-19. And then, just as the worst waves of transmission were set to begin in November, it became public that Kasirye and other women in public health had terrible issues with Gill.
But the Board of Supervisors couldn’t fire Gill because when Gill’s term as CEO was extended in 2019, then-board chair Patrick Kennedy was the key third vote to keep Gill, whose employment as CEO was left open ended. Without a time certain deal, the county charter states that a County CEO can only be removed for cause with the vote of at least four of the five board members.
In October, Kennedy and Serna called on Gill to resign. He refused. He was put on leave in November after the allegations of sexism and racism. So Gill continues to collect his $311,00 base salary while he is being investigated.
Frost steps in it, too
Who has been a big supporter of Gill? Frost.
So it was not a surprise to anyone who has followed this mess that Frost would not consult with Kasirye on her health resolution since, in ways big and small, Frost has been undermining Kasirye for months.
How must Kasirye, a doctor from Uganda, have felt when, in talking about COVID-19, Frost referred to the “country of Africa.”
Gracious and soft spoken, Kasirye has had to fight COVID-19 while dealing with that – all of that.
Frost’s resolution was shot down on Tuesday. It couldn’t even get a second when Frost made motion to have it approved. It was like a resolution supported in some rural and conservative counties in California. “Our county is best served by an ability to respond locally to the COVID-19 virus in accordance with our local data and circumstances,” read a summary of Frost’s resolution.
Newsom deserves all the heat for his mishandling of the state’s COVID-19 response. But the bottom line is, businesses have to follow state guidelines on COVID-19, and so does Kasirye.
In the biggest health crisis of the last century, Sacramento County leaders such as Frost and Gill have only made Kasirye’s impossible job harder. That’s a Sacramento story of COVID-19 that people should never forget.
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
