Campbell Co. commissioners reject resolution against health orders

GILLETTE — Campbell County Commissioners will not adopt a resolution against the state’s coronavirus public health orders.

At a directors meeting Monday, Commissioners Del Shelstad and Colleen Faber said they had received questions from residents about whether Campbell County would pass a resolution against government overreach similar to what has been done in other communities.

The city of Sheridan adopted a resolution July 20 “declaring all legal businesses and personnel in the city as essential.” The resolution was necessary “for the purpose of discouraging state authorities from enacting forced closures.”

Two weeks later, the three-member Goshen County Commission adopted a resolution to “encourage the public to make appropriate virus-related health care decisions for themselves and their families” and to “refrain from any county-level virus-related mandates concerning individual health care decisions.”

After talking with Deputy Dounty Attorney Jenny Staeben and Administrative Director Carol Seeger, the commissioners decided not to go the same route.

Resolutions are no more than a statement on how the commission feels on a particular issue and are not legally binding, Seeger said.

Staeben said passing a resolution like Goshen County’s could have serious consequences. Her main concern was how a similar resolution would affect Campbell County’s ability to get federal funding, especially through the coronavirus relief act.

“If the federal government finds out we passed a resolution that basically says we’re not going to listen to state mandates or health restrictions to stop the contagion, when they give us those funds, are they going to ask for them back?” she asked.

County government is an extension of state government, Staeben said.

“If we pass this kind of resolution, we’re going directly against the state mandates and the powers granted to the state,” she said.

If Campbell County passed its own resolution, it “would probably fail” because the Attorney General’s Office “definitely would have legal grounds” to override the resolution if it chose to, Staeben said.

Constitutionally, Goshen County’s resolution doesn’t have much to stand on, Staeben added.

The resolution quotes the Wyoming Constitution, Article 1, Section 38, which starts with, “each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.”

Staeben said one must look at the entire section instead of taking out one sentence and saying “that’s what we want.” The section refers to a person’s right to health care access and insurance.

“It’s really more of a clause about insurance than our own rights,” she said. “It permits any person to pay any health care provider and receive direct payment for services.”

The only other section of the Wyoming Constitution that talks about health is Article 7, Section 20, which says the Legislature has a duty to “protect and promote health and morality of people.”

Commission Chairman D.G. Reardon said he asked the city of Gillette what it thought of Sheridan’s resolution, and City Administrator Pat Davidson said the Sheridan City Council’s resolution is “contrary to their authority and is without any power for enforcement.”

Faber said while she didn’t think “there was any pull” with a resolution, it was an important conversation to have.

Shelstad said many residents were concerned when businesses like Walmart remained open because they were considered essential, while many local businesses were shut down because they were not.

“It seems to me, people get their feelings hurt when we bring stuff like this up. It’s not to hurt anyone’s feelings,” he said. “Is this something we can do? How do we find out? By having this discussion right now, I don’t know if it’s a viable thing either.”

Reardon said neither the county nor the governor should tell a business to close down or remain open during a pandemic.

“That’s up to the individual business to decide for themselves,” he said. “But if the governor comes and says we’re shutting stuff down, then yeah, I have a problem with that.”

Commissioner Rusty Bell said he thought a resolution would be nothing more than a political statement and that it would’ve been better to have the conversation after the election.

“If we make a political statement, I think that’s a dangerous place for this board to be,” he said. “Especially days out from an election, it’s not a good place for this board to be.”

Shelstad said he took exception to the fact that Bell thought this was a political statement.

“When we had this discussion last week, I said I would be OK with this coming up with our next meeting after the election. That would make it nonpolitical,” he said. “Don’t try to make it sound like I’m just bringing this up because there’s an election going on.”

Bell said it would be more productive to work with the state Legislature next year to address the issue.

“Is that where we want this board to be on a daily basis, on a weekly basis? We have more important issues to deal with,” he said. “We should be focused on providing essential services at an efficient cost.”