New GPH Board Member Seated
The Geauga County Health District Advisory Council named a newcomer to the board of Geauga Public Health at their annual meeting March 23.
The Geauga County Health District Advisory Council named a newcomer to the board of Geauga Public Health at their annual meeting March 23.
Current GPH board member and previous President David Gragg had been favored by the screening committee for reappointment, but when the votes were cast, newcomer Carolyn Brakey took 11 out of 18 — including from some in the screening committee whose votes flipped in her favor.
Brakey, an energy attorney at Chagrin Falls-based Brakey Energy, was the only candidate without a health background. Other candidates included Gragg, a retired pharmacist with 10 years of experience in public health; Bryan Kuch, a physical therapist; Carolyn Snyder, who previously ran the Women, Infants and Children program for GPH and is pursuing a doctorate in public health; and Caralyn Treharne, a nurse with a master’s degree in geriatrics, who is also pursuing her doctorate.
“Last month, I saw there was an open seat on the Geauga County Board of Health,” Brakey said in a Mar. 24 Facebook post, which has since been removed. “I felt a strong calling to apply, even though there was an incumbent who was highly favored to win.”
Brakey said she shared her intentions to seek appointment for the position with some friends.
“And the next thing I knew, a grassroots campaign of local liberty-loving residents formed around me,” she said.
Only seven HDAC members voted for other candidates, with four votes going to Gragg and three votes to Snyder.
The HDAC has 22 members, with representatives from each Geauga County township and municipality, along with one county commissioner.
Public health board members serve a five-year term, with one member’s term expiring each year. Richard Piraino’s term is the next to expire in 2023.
In her speech to the HDAC prior to their vote, Brakey said the board needs to draw on bravery in their decision-making. She cited a biblical story from the Book of Numbers to make her point:
“In the Book of Numbers, while the Israelites are traveling to the Promised Land, they are plagued with venomous snakes,” Brakey said. “So, Moses turns to God for help. God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, and if anyone cast their gaze forward upon it, the snakes can no longer harm them.”
The story, Brakey said, reminded her of the medical symbol – called the Caduceus – of a staff with two serpents entwining it. God, she said, gave the Israelites bravery, the best antidote to fear.
“Geauga County has spent our last two years plagued by our own snakes,” Brakey continued. “We have been faced with a novel respiratory virus that has posed an outsized risk to those reaching the end of their natural life cycle, either due to age or extensive comorbidities. I in no way want to minimize that. But rather than fostering bravery, governments have peddled fear.”
That fear was used as a tool to decimate the economy, close businesses, schools and playgrounds. Last September, GPH and its board members issued guidance to schools during the pandemic that recommended harsher quarantine measures for schools that did not have a mask requirement, she said.
“But the people of Geauga County have long had our gaze set ahead,” Brakey said. “We have been brave. We let our children play on closed playgrounds. We walked around unmasked, making us more vulnerable to conflict, but not contagion. We’ve shown up at board of health meetings the fourth Wednesday of every month and at school board meetings in the county. We did not comply. And it was through our brave non-compliance that the tyranny we have been subject to has finally started to crack.”
Brakey then encouraged HDAC members to not allow GPH to “dictate” which candidate to select in the process and to vote for change.
“How many 5-0 board of health decisions that hurt our citizens and our children need to occur before the advisory council decides a change is in order?” Brakey said.
