A typically non-partisan election has garnered much polarized attention this election cycle, with eight candidates vying for three positions on the Platte County Health Department Board of Trustees.
Those candidates are, in ballot order, Michael Shafe, Susan Cole, Kim Swaney, Steven Hoeger, Karen Payne, Paula Willmarth, Marygold Fry and Brandi Moritz.
The Platte County Federated Democratic Women hosted a candidate forum Monday, March 13 at the Platte County Resource Center, with five of the eight candidates in attendance. Cole and Swaney opted not to attend after noticing they, along with Shafe, were identified on the Platte County Democratic Central Committee website as “non-endorsed” candidates.
Endorsements came up during the forum as an audience member noted Shafe was endorsed by the Platte County Republican Central Committee. Shafe responded that he had not sought the endorsement, leading into a brief, heated exchange before it was cut off by moderator Sharen Hunt.
The Platte County Commission, particularly Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker, also became a point of contention during the forum, when candidates were asked about how to keep politics out of the health board.
Incumbent Paula Willmarth, who has served on the board since 2016, said it was hard to keep politics at bay when the politically inclined “like to take shots” at the board.
She cited Fricker’s comments at a recent county commission administrative session, when he urged people to vote against the incumbent on the ballot.
“That should not come from the dais of the Platte County Commission,” Willmarth said.
The statement led into the question from the audience pointed at Shafe, who then asked if he should “rebuke Fricker for endorsing me?”
“Yes,” was the reply from the audience, followed by applause.
“This is the kind of politics we need to keep out of the board,” Shafe said.
Candidates were also asked their philosophies on public health and data-driven outcomes, which has become a buzz phrase in the election.
“When dealing with COVID we were data-driven,” Willmarth said. “We were in constant contact with the CDC and other agencies. We took a lot of criticism for listening to the Centers for Disease Control, but we provided the best and highest-level of services we could.”
Hoeger, who works with the Mid-America Regional Council on public health emergencies, including the COVID pandemic, noted that the Kansas City area hospital he works for was the first in the metro area three years ago to institute masking, based on evidence of transmission among hospital staff over the course of the first weeks of the pandemic.
Payne, a nurse, worked as a epidemiologist for the Platte County Health Department for 10 years, and said staff were warned there would someday be a pandemic and the department had to do its best to prepare.
“Science is ever changing, but we have a climate now where a lot of people don’t want to listen to the science,” Payne said, noting that public health is doing what is best for the larger population, not necessarily the individual.
Shafe, who works as an emergency physician, said as a doctor you have to look at the best science to treat a patient, while also being aware that the science is always changing.
“If we don’t look at data and be willing to look back then we don’t learn,” he said.
Audience members submitted questions, with one touching upon the county commission’s decisions regarding federal CARES Act funds, and again, on how to keep politics out of the health department.
Payne said emergency preparedness funding had been dwindling for years, and had done so during her time working for the health department as well.
“My understanding is there is money that should have gone to the health department, but it didn’t,” she said. “You don’t use politics to take care of people; you don’t use politics to fund health care.”
Shafe agreed there was no role for partisanship in health care, and added he was not going to address the matter of the new unified health department building, which has been criticized by Fricker at several public meetings.
“That’s water under the bridge for me,” he said of the new building.
Through his MARC position, Hoeger said he watched other metro area health departments receive funding before Platte County.
“It was disappointing to see our county didn’t fund the health department in the same way as other counties,” Hoeger said.
The Citizen will further profile candidates for the health board election in the Wednesday, March 29 issue.