Brennan resigns as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee

 

At last night's Standing Committee meeting of the Chemung County Legislature, the resignation of Joe Brennan as chair of the Health and Human Services Committee was accepted. 

Brennan gave no explanation for this move, except to say that he felt it was time for someone else to do the job after 7 1/2 years and that Scott Drake was willing to take over the role.

Brennan had used this position as committee chair and as a member of the legislature to attack his own Health Department at the height of the COVID / Delta variant outbreak last year. As I wrote in my letter to the editor in the Star-Gazette last fall:

County legislator Joe Brennan has proposed a resolution to block the Chemung County Health Department from offering incentives for the COVID-19 vaccine. It would also forbid the county from partnering with anyone who would offer a giveaway as an incentive to getting the vaccine. 

After being tabled in the September meeting, this resolution is expected to go to a vote at the next full meeting of the legislature. 

If successful, this would essentially be a vote of no-confidence for the Chemung County Health Department and an endorsement of the anti-vaccination propaganda Brennan has been promoting for months. The legislature would be knee-capping the efforts of its own health department to reach and educate the public.  

This comes in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 4.6 million people in the world, 662,000 people in the United States, and 54,000 in New York state. This includes dozens of our fellow residents of Chemung County. 

Throughout this crisis, the county health department has been working tirelessly to save our lives. They have conducted thousands of case investigations, tested thousands of residents, and administered thousands of vaccines.

The legislature should be thanking the health department, not hampering them.  

Before voting, the county legislators should be responsible enough to seek out the input of local experts. They can find experts in immunology, biology and science at local medical groups, regional universities and even at their own County Health Department or the Chemung County Board of Health. Or how about just asking their personal physician, someone they trust, what they think? Or perhaps it would be useful for the health department to explain its COVID response in a public forum?

To vote on this resolution without seeking expert input would be a disservice to the residents of Chemung County.

I encourage every resident of Chemung County, especially those with medical and scientific training, to contact your Chemung County legislator and let them know what you think. The full legislature meets at 7 p.m. on Oct. 12 at the John H. Hazlett Building on Lake Street in Elmira. Our lives are at stake.

Ed Bond

Horseheads NY

Fortunately, when Brennan had tried to make this proposal to the full legislature, his motion failed to get a second, so it died on the spot. To have the chair of the Health and Human Services Committee so publicly against the health department was an outrageous situation that has hopefully been resolved with his resignation. 

Now we just need to remove him from the legislature entirely. You can do that by voting for me in November. 

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