Orr bears false witness against health board chair, city council

Resident DC Orr has demanded that Lincoln County Health Board Chair Jan Ivers divulge the topic of discussion of a secret meeting she held with Libby City Council earlier this month.

There’s just one problem: He imagined the surreptitious gathering.

Orr, a Libby resident, former city councilor and fierce critic of the county’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, leveled the allegations of a clandestine meeting during the public comment portion of the Feb. 8 meeting of the health board. Orr, who recently announced his pursuit of the open Libby representative seat on the panel, offered his first hand account as evidence of the covert talks.

He told health board members that he attended a Libby City Council meeting earlier this month, one where Ivers was also in attendance. After the meeting ended, he chatted outside with another attendee. Ivers never emerged from City Hall, he said.

“How come no one came out of the meeting?” Orr asked before answering his own question. “Come to find out, Chair Ivers was in there having a meeting in secret with the city council [after] all the public had left.”

While Ivers brushed the allegations off, Orr demanded to know the details of the covert conversation.

“I would like to know what you talked to the council about,” Orr said.

“I don’t think you have your facts right,” Ivers replied.

“Are you going to answer the question?” Orr pressed.

He ultimately was unsuccessful in trying to get answers about the meeting, because there was no such conclave.

Ivers was at Libby City Council’s Feb. 1 meeting, the only gathering that board has held thus far this month. She has attended several local government meetings in recent weeks, including the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners. Her visits came as health board members prepared to undergo training on parliamentary procedure and potentially shake up how they organize meetings.

When the meeting ended, she spoke briefly with this reporter. Then she departed.

City councilors were unaware of the alleged clandestine meeting with Ivers. City Councilor Kristin Smith, in attendance that evening, said she was not involved in any additional gathering.

"We're not allowed to have secret meetings," she said.

City Councilor Gary Beach, who attended remotely via Zoom, said he logged off as soon as the regularly scheduled meeting ended.

"I disconnected from the Zoom meeting right after the meeting was over," he said. "Whether or not she stayed after and spoke with anybody that was in the chambers, I can’t answer that because I was not present. I can say most likely no."

Beach said he was aware that Ivers attended as part of the aforementioned fact-finding mission. She wanted to see how the city council wielded Robert's Rules of Order, he said.

Orr also took advantage of the public comment period to criticize Ivers for not delivering the health board’s regular report to Libby City Council while in attendance. The city’s representative on the board typically delivers that report. Until very recently, Laura Crismore held that position.

Crismore resigned last month, citing a perceived interest in having non-medical professionals on the board. She also said her work at Cabinet Peaks Medical Center had increased as the pandemic raged on, leaving her less time to devote to the panel.

Orr said Ivers’ failure to deliver the report — she is an at-large member appointed by county commissioners and not beholden to Libby officials — underscored what he described as a lack of public trust in the board.

“You guys have a crisis of confidence in this board,” he said. “People in this town just don’t believe what’s coming out of here.”

Orr has long been a critic of the health board, repeatedly calling for the dismissal of its members and the ousting of county Health Officer Dr. Brad Black. As the number of COVID-19 cases increased in the autumn, Orr baselessly claimed that Black was profiting off of the pandemic, even after health board members, county commissioners and the county attorney’s office cleared the doctor of any wrongdoing in response to the manufactured brouhaha.

He also has argued that the pandemic is overblown and pandemic mitigation efforts undertaken by the state, like wearing masks and banning large gatherings, are an attack on liberty.

In recent months, Orr has launched a campaign against a Troy business after it was held up as an example of how to implement pandemic measures by a health board member. Photos later emerged of the owner not wearing a face mask in his business, which Orr highlighted as hypocritical.

After sharing the photos on several popular Facebook pages, including one that purports to support local businesses, Orr suggested the Troy business owner sue the health board for damages from the ensuing controversy.

Even more recently, he has also sought to have a local schoolteacher disciplined for speaking to the press about a leaky roof at Libby Elementary School. Orr, who has prided himself on exposing wrongdoing in local government, suggested the teacher ought to have handled the problem internally instead of bringing it to public light.

Orr announced his candidacy for the position of the Libby representative to the county health board earlier this month on social media. Libby City Council is expected to review the candidates and make an appointment Feb. 15.