City Attorney, Rebecca Thompson - Board of Health Roles &
Responsibilities
Heidt introduces city attorney Rebecca Thompson, then turns the floor over to her to
present. Thompson states that she is here to give an overview of what the ordinances say
about the Board of Health's roles and responsibilities. Stating a brief passage from the
ordinance which states that the "Board of Health shall act as an advisory board to the
City Manager, Health Officer, and the City Council on matters pertaining to Public Health
and Animal Control and shall perform other duties as may be prescribed by law or
ordinance." Thompson tells how the Board of Health is an advisory board, also
mentioning that suggestions from city boards should be submitted to City Council in the
form of a report prior to any expenditures of staff time or money on the topic that the
suggestion is being made about. At this time it is asked that since the Board of Health is
a City/County board they want to know if they also make recommendations to the County
Commissioner. Since they are a City/County board they would make recommendations
to the County Commissioner. Janet Thompson, the County Commissioner is in
attendance and lets the board know that the best way to make a recommendation to the
County would be to make the recommendation to Roesslet, the Health Director, first
because they have a monthly meeting and that is when it could be discussed and they
could come back to the board with more questions. They continue there discussion about
the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Health, taking this time to ask their question
to Thompson to get more clarification on some of the details.
Thompson finishes presenting and answering questions from the board. The board then
moves into a discussion of what they want to do moving forward with their meetings.
Feirman asks Janet Thompson, from a County perspective if there is anything she thinks
they should look into. Thompson mentions a thing that is a topic on a national level, the
violence in the community, and the topic of gun violence as a Public Health issue.
Mentioning that maybe that is something to look at. Thompson tells about D'Markus
Thomas-Brown's, the City's Office of Violence Prevention representative, work with
community violence prevention. Roesslet asks the board if they would be interested in
having D'Markus present at the March meeting. Thompson tells about the mental health
issues of people in the County Jail, how it is a disaster.
Heidt asks if there are any other question, going on to say that the plan is to have the
next meeting in March. Miller brings up that it was mentioned at one point about the HIV
Prevention education and would be interested in having an update on that. Roesslet will
let the board know if D'Markus will be able to make it to the March meeting and it there
will be a March meeting.
VI. REPORTS
