After its meeting was cancelled twice because of safety concerns, the Southwest District Health board held a special meeting Thursday morning to discuss public health mitigation strategies. But the controversial discussion on whether to require face masks was off the agenda.
Still, a crowd gathered in the Canyon County Courthouse, where the meeting was moved from the health district’s Caldwell office for safety reasons. Board members and the public were not required to wear masks.
“You’re in Canyon County right now, you’re not in Boise,” Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue reminded the room, to which the crowd erupted in a cheer.
Canyon County, in Southwest District Health’s area, has seen a rise in coronavirus cases, almost on par with Ada County. Medical leaders detailed their concerns about the county's trajectory in comments submitted to the board.
St. Luke's said its Nampa intensive care unit is full, forcing the hospital to direct patients to Boise. Saint Alphonsus said the ICU at its Nampa hospital could be full in a couple of weeks.
“Unfortunately, if Southwest District Health doesn’t take action, my concern and the concern of the hospitals is that this will surge, fill up our hospitals, and then there’ll be a crisis where there’ll be no choice,” said Dr. David Peterman in an interview last week.
During Thursday’s meeting, the board voted to approve public health mitigation strategies for various health alert levels within the district. A certain number of cases in the district would trigger recommendations like wearing face masks, limiting the size of large gatherings and limiting visits to elder-care facilities, but there are no mandates for such strategies on the table.
“That’s what we wish to do -- make some recommendations with some intelligent backing,” said board chairman and Gem County Commissioner Bryan Elliot. “That gives people the opportunity to look at it and then they make their own choice. They can make a good choice, they can make a bad choice, and time will tell what that is.”
The Southwest District Health board was supposed to hold a meeting one week ago to hear from health leaders about hospital capacity. It was also going to discuss and vote on public health measures that may have included a face mask mandate.
But protestors showed up to that meeting, demanding in-person access to the small room. Police were called to the Caldwell office building and it was rescheduled for Tuesday due to “safety concerns.” But then, once again, it was cancelled in advance for the same reason.
When this meeting was postponed for a second time, Southwest District Health removed the discussion on mandating face masks from the agenda.
“The agenda has been simplified from earlier this week to dispel public speculation,” a press release announcing the meeting said, “about the Board of Health’s intent to impose a mandatory mask order.”
When asked why a face mask mandate was removed from the agenda before board members had a chance to discuss it, Southwest District Health said in an email that this is because at a meeting two weeks ago, board members indicated they would not support a mandated order. It was never formally discussed or voted upon.
At that meeting earlier this month, Director Nikki Zogg told board members, at the time, she didn’t think health districts could require face masks. A week later, Central District Health made them mandatory for Ada County.
Updates from local hospital leaders were also removed from Thursday’s meeting agenda, but were shared with the board in the meeting packet.
Find reporter Rachel Cohen on Twitter @racheld_cohen
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