Board of Health Rebuts Vicious Allegation
Against Director Dr. Brown
by George Gramlich
Yes, we have more drama at the Custer County Public Health Agency. But this time it was generated by an outside source with a dubious agenda (instead of the usual infighting between the Shut Her Down/Level Redders directors Flowers and Printz versus the commonsense health AND business oriented Director Canda.)
With regards to the latest scandal, board member Jay Printz, in a rare moment of clarity and brevity, summed up the whole affair about halfway through the brief 21 minute meeting Monday morning, December 14th, when he said: “I think it was a witch hunt.” Amen.
What got the whole thing going was a December 10 front page story in the diminutive Wet Mt. Tribune by editor Jordy Hedberg that the Public Health Agency’s Director, Dr. Clifford Brown, lied on his resumé when he said he got a Masters degree in Public Health from online university, Dartley University, a long time ago. Jordy alleges, basically, that Brown lied on his resumé because Jordy (obsessively) can’t validate Dartley as an online university.
Now, if you have met Dr. Brown, you immediately see that he is a polite, well dressed, soft spoken, old school gentleman. Simply a class act. His public health career documented by his unbelievably impressive resumé is simply outstanding. I mean this guy has done it all. We are beyond lucky to land a man with these credentials. Beyond lucky.
As a result of that allegation by Jordy, the Board of Health (BoH) had an executive session with Dr. Brown last Wednesday, December 9th to discuss the allegation. At the session, they obviously reviewed the issue with Dr. Brown. They decided to issue a press release on the issue which was released at this latest meeting.
The press release (see the whole thing below) was quite interesting. It says that early in Dr. Brown’s employment there was an allegation about the Dartley degree and that the BoH discussed that with Dr. Brown who produced scholastic transcripts of his studies there and his diploma. Dr. Brown said that he wanted to go to a regular
in-person school to get his Masters in Public Health (and was in fact accepted at Emory and NYU, which is saying something) but that his employer at the time wouldn’t give him a sabbatical from work to
do it.
So he decided to get it via an online school and chose Dartley. I don’t know Dartley but it is (or was) probably a second tier online school—but who cares. We are not talking about a degree in quantum physics. We’re talking public health. This is not rocket science. So, Dr. Brown took the curriculum for two years and got his degree. Fair enough. But now we have Jordy attacking the man in his flyer for this. Strange.
So, riddle me this: why is Jordy obsessed with Dr. Brown’s resumé? As stated above, his credentials are excellent and he has done an outstanding job here in a very, very challenging environment. It is well known through the Trib and Jordy’s Facebook diatribes that he is a Level Red/Lock Down fanatic and cares little about the local economic consequences of such a move. Fear permeates his writing and actions. Dr. Brown, on the other hand, uses a balanced approach to this health issue knowing that the world isn’t perfect, bad things happen, and that an economic shutdown of the county, at this infection level, is just plain stupid.
So, instead of constructively criticizing Dr. Brown’s position, Jordy takes the low road and viciously attacks his character via the alleged fake public health degree. Why else spend all this time and energy investigating Dr. Brown’s vitae/resumé? If he can’t win the argument, he can destroy the good man’s reputation and career. Folks, we have enough problems now with the Chinese bug and vindictive attacks against the guy who is leading the charge to manage this is just wrong. Dead wrong. There might be other reasons for Jordy’s character attack, but we won’t go there. Bottom Line: A team player Jordy is not.
Before we get to the press release, at the meeting Dr. Brown gave the latest COVID statistics for Custer County and things are looking pretty darn good. There were three new positives over the weekend giving us a current total of current positives at 29. There have been 1,391 tests given and only 118 positive tests since this thing started. Nobody is in the hospital due to this.
(COVID Update from Public Health, December 15: Some more good news: the positive test result dropped dramatically to 23 but there is now one person hospitalized. 1,406 tests since inception to date.)
Here is the Custer County Board of Health December 14 Press Release regarding the Trib’s attack on Dr. Brown’s character:
PRESS RELEASE FROM
THE CUSTER COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH
The December 10 edition of the Wet Mountain Tribune contained a front page article questioning the credentials of Dr. Clifford Brown, the Public Health Director for Custer County and the head of the Public Health Agency. The article asserted that Dr. Brown obtained his Master’s Degree in Public Health from a “diploma mill” and called into question his honesty and truthfulness for listing this degree on the lengthy curriculum vitae he submitted when applying for the position he now holds.
This issue has already been addressed by the Board of Health. Shortly after Dr. Brown was hired a complaint was made that his Master’s Degree was bogus and fraudulent. He produced transcripts of the online courses he took during the two years he spent working toward this degree, and he also produced a copy of the diploma he earned from Dartley University. Dr. Brown acknowledged to the Board of Health that he had not checked as to whether Dartley was an accredited school at the time he made the decision in 2006 to pursue his degree through this institution. He informed the Board of Health that he had been accepted by the Master’s programs at Emory University in Atlanta and New York University in New York City, but both of these universities required that he attend classes in person. At that time he was employed as a Commissioned Corps Officer in the United States Public Health Service, which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is the federal uniformed service of the USPHS. He was promoted to the rank of Captain, a Naval ranking equivalent to the rank of Colonel in the Army and Air Force, and served for 13 years as a Senior Health Administrator. He was working at the Crow Agency in Montana when he decided to pursue his Master’s Degree. He was denied permission to take a sabbatical to attend classes in person, which is the reason he chose to earn a degree online. Dr. Brown said that he spent two years working toward his degree, and received his diploma in 2008.
The county commissioners, who also sit as the Board of Health for Custer County, were given the opportunity to review his transcripts and his diploma and had no reason to question the truth of his explanation. The members of the Board of Health considered the matter closed.
It is very important to point out that a Master’s Degree in Public Health is not a statutory requirement for a person to be qualified to serve as a Public Health Director. Section 25-1-508 (5)(c)(I) of the Colorado Revised Statutes reads in part as follows: “A public health director may be a physician, physician’s assistant, public health nurse, or other qualified public health professional.” [emphasis supplied]. Dr. Brown is a Doctor of Optometry, having received his degree from Pacific University in 1973, and his long career in public health made him eminently qualified for the position of Public Health Director for Custer County. His Master’s Degree in Public Health was not a deciding factor in the hiring decision; it was his vast experience at the federal level in the field of public health that caused the Board of Health to offer him the position.
The Board of Health fully supports Dr. Brown as a person of high character and integrity.
Bill Canda, Tom Flower and Jay Printz
(Custer County Board of Health)