Collin County Commissioners Court
They met this week with Cheryl Williams absent. You’d think these people could manage to attend the one meeting per week that’s public but many meetings operate with at least one commissioner missing. The upcoming vaccine was discussed. The county itself won’t have a big role in distribution since we have enough providers willing to administer it. Providers will include all major grocery stores, CVS, Walgreens, and some long-term care providers. There will not be mobile vaccine distributors since we don’t have any medical deserts in the county.
The funding given by the federal government for the Families First Act will expire on December 31st. The Act provides money for people unable to work due to quarantining, active infection, or caring for dependents, so they won’t go to work sick and spread infection. However, since we have a growing number of county employees whose quarantine period will run into 2021, the Court needed to make a decision about what to do about funding their leave. It was suggested that the county continue to pay for them to stay home and make up the budget shortfall later but the commissioners weren’t sure this was a good idea. Duncan Webb supported it only as long as we have the money to cover it. This is short-term and limited thinking at its worst, as if money was the only consideration here.
But the true privileged behavior was modeled by Chris Hill, who self-righteously complained that people who come to work instead of quarantining are failing to act in an “upstanding” way. I guess parading himself around polling locations without a mask while infected (something he did during the election) was somehow more honorable. Instead of agreeing that the county should take care of their potentially sick employees, he wanted to know what Collin businesses plan to do for their sick employees after the mandate expires. He doesn’t want to “get ahead of our community” given the challenges of taxpayers recently. Yes, absolutely. We certainly wouldn’t want our government to show leadership in caution and compassion during a public health crisis.
The CARES Act funding will also expire on December 31st. This means that, among other things, the indigent and general public testing programs (like the one at Toyota Stadium that testing 1,000 people on the 5th) will no longer have public funding. This will be problematic given the Court’s reluctance to spend money. For example, Agape Resource & Assistance Center (which helps people experiencing temporary homelessness) requested funding for internet and childcare services to help mothers and children escaping domestic violence. Only Chris Hill was willing to fund the comparatively modest request. None of the others wanted to help mothers and children although they were too cowardly to vote it down directly.
Speaking of cowardly behavior, you may have noticed our Attorney General Ken Paxton in the news lately. If you’ve been at all upset by this, remember that the reason Paxton has yet to stand trial for his multiple indictments is because our County Commissioners have been and are currently doing everything in their power to prevent it.
