Written by Bob Balgemann
She [Director of Health Department] was referring to the comment by District 3 county board member Marion Thornberry that he thought requiring such a permit was “ridiculous.”
Committee and board of health Chairman Kent Hess, M.D., said his temperature “just rose 100 percent” in reaction to the matter.
“Mine, too, after reading the article” in the Belvidere Daily Republican, committee member Jim Cox said. He added that Bill Hatfield sent a copy of the code to State’s Attorney Michelle Courier, and she said the department was following it.
Hess wondered if the county board “is getting into a fistfight over Tootsie Rolls?”
“The comments made by the county board member (Thornberry) were inappropriate,” Cox said. “We’re just implementing the code.”
“We follow it to the letter,” Frank interjected.
“It seems that the health department has been a lightning rod of late,” committee member Allen Sisson said. “We need to be more proactive and quit being the lightning rod.”
Hatfield said the department has a board of health, which by state statute is independent. “I don’t think they (some county board members) like that,” he said.
Hatfield, director of environmental health for the department, said he had proposed amendments to the county code, which the department was following, in the Courier’s hands the Monday after the fair, “to solve this particular problem.”
“We’re in the middle of that process,” he added. “Hopefully, by the middle of September this will be history.”
Committee member Kathleen Taylor questioned why county sheriff’s candidate Dave Ernest was required to have a permit, while some others “got away with it?”
Hatfield said the code in question was enacted in 1978 “and is too broad when it comes to defining a food establishment. We’re just enforcing that code.”
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