Protesters demand removal of health board members

A small group of local pandemic deniers and anti-vaxxers upped longstanding efforts to remove members of the Lincoln County Health Board unsympathetic to their views.

Led by Trego resident Catherine Kahle, the group picketed outside of the Lincoln County Courthouse complex May 5 ahead of a scheduled meeting with commissioners. Their demands were simple: Purge Jan Ivers and Jim Seifert from the county health board.

“There is nothing now stopping you doing what is right for the people,” Kahle said, citing new laws signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte giving local elected officials more control over decisions made by health boards.

“You now oversee the health board,” she said. “The people shouldn’t have to resort to legal relief when it’s in your power to make things right. It’s time to reorganize the health board as we requested six months ago.”

Although Kahle and her compatriots repeatedly expressed displeasure with the health board's — and county health officer’s — stance on coronavirus vaccines, the calls for Ivers’ and Seifert’s ouster hinged on perceived attempts to limit and stymie public comment.

Kahle cited past instances where she was muted or cut off by Ivers during contentious health board meetings during the height of the pandemic. More recently, the health board held a work session in Libby sans Zoom. The board, like other local government entities, adopted the popular videoconferencing software last year for public involvement when pandemic restrictions took hold.

Dropping Zoom for work sessions limited residents’ ability to participate, Kahle said. A written statement she submitted to the board in lieu of public comment was not read aloud as she had requested, she said.

Brief mention of the letter, later attached to the board’s meeting minutes, was made by Seifert at an April gathering.

“I just want to go on record to say that if anyone researches all of her allegations on that letter they will find most of them false,” he said before voting with the majority to approve the minutes and place the attached comments, including the letter, into the record.

Kahle described it as a rant, one meant to discourage public comment.

“This was a deliberate attempt to not only silence me, but every citizen of Lincoln County who wishes to participate,” Kahle said.

Commissioners agreed to look into the matter, particularly the move away from Zoom for the work session. But Josh Letcher (D-3), a Eureka area resident who represents commissioners on the board and attended the March work session, argued that Kahle’s grievances were imprecise.

All three Eureka area representatives drove to Libby to attend in-person, he said. Kahle’s letter was attached to the minutes as submitted.

“We were having a working meeting where we weren’t making any decision. I thought it would be best, instead of trying to mess with Zoom, to have an in-person meeting,” he said. “It may look like it was done intentionally, but all three board members from Eureka knew we were coming down.”

Letcher’s colleagues also pushed back on Kahle’s allegations that they had done nothing in response to the group’s criticisms. County Commissioner Jerry Bennett (D-2) pointed to the parliamentary procedure training the group had undergone in the months since the pandemic began and alluded to the commissioners’ advocating for the new laws to give them increased control over the health board.

And he acknowledged that commissioners appointed a new member based on the preferences of Kahle and her cohorts earlier this year.

“You also have the person on the health board from Eureka that you asked for — we did that,” he said. “We also have instituted board training, special training, and we are going to follow that up this month with some additional training. I realize that may not be enough, but we have no sat idly by.”

When former health board member George Jamison stepped down last year to make way for a north Lincoln County resident, the panel recommended Jeff Peterson. Commissioners passed over Peterson, who boasted a resume heavy in academic work and had helped the county health department retool its communications strategy for the pandemic, for Scott Bernhard.

Bernhard, a town councilor in Eureka, has downplayed the risks associated with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, even as its death toll approached 500,000 in the U.S. He questioned the proficiency of masks and criticized face covering requirements. Bernhard is skeptical of the vaccines as well, telling The Western News earlier this year that he would not recommend “to anybody that they get vaccinated.”

Kahle sought to use the convoluted process leading up to Bernhard’s ascension as more evidence of tyranny on the health board. She repeated a false claim that Ivers, who serves as chair, unilaterally torpedoed Bernhard’s candidacy.

While the process the board used to whittle the candidates down to two finalists was informal, only one member — Letcher — listed Bernhard as a preference.

Peterson and another candidate, Patricia Kincheloe, enjoyed widespread support, with Peterson eventually getting selected.

It was not the only debunked or erroneous claim Kahle repeated before commissioners May 5. The pandemic, she told commissioners, had been prolonged by intentional misdiagnosis of cases.

She described the vaccine, which she has previously claimed will alter recipients’ DNA, as a “gene therapy treatment” and criticized the health board for promoting it. Doctors, she falsely claimed, remained in the dark about its contents.

Letcher disagreed, noting that he, Bernhard and Eureka representative Debra Armstrong all expressed reservations about vaccination. County Commissioner Mark Peck (D-1) maintained that the decision to get vaccinated was up to residents.

“If you’re not comfortable, I encourage you not to take it,” Peck said. “But those are individual choices.”

Thus far, about 5,261 residents of Lincoln County are vaccinated. Another 6,645 have received their first dose, according to the state.

Kahle recommended officials promote ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, as well as good nutrition, exercise and vitamins, to treat the illness she believes is overwrought. The National Institutes for Health concluded in November that hydroxychloroquine provided no benefit to hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The FDA strongly warned against people using Ivermectin for COVID-19 and anything other than what a doctor might prescribe it for — generally, conditions caused by parasitic worms.

The FDA has reported multiple instances where patients required care after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses.

Kahle’s husband, Ed Kahle, alleged that the Center for Asbestos Related Disease, where the county’s health officer serves as CEO, might view COVID-19 as a moneymaking scheme as the effects of the Libby Superfund site ebb.

“I think you’re stepping into the realm of the things you’re accusing other people of with that,” cautioned Peck, who has worked on the asbestos issue in Libby for years.

As for the group’s demands, commissioners took no immediate action other than to say they would look into the public comment-related allegations. While commissioners could remove Ivers — they appointed her to the health board as an at-large member — Seifert represents Troy, Bennett said.

On a city-county health board, commissioners were limited in removing a municipal-appointed member, he said.