KEARNEY, Neb. (KGFW) – Two Rivers Public Health Department had sought authority over the City of Kearney’s health decisions – including control of the Keaney Police Department, but the City refused to sign the agreement.
“There was an agreement that came to the City of Kearney, here, a couple months ago,” Kearney Mayor Stan Clouse told KGFW’s “Talk of the Town” Friday. An agreement with Two Rivers where we would turn over our health authority decisions to them. And the City of Kearney refused to sign that agreement because there were statements and clauses within that agreement that said that, essentially if you looked it, we would turn jurisdiction over our law enforcement. [Two Rivers] would have the authority to control what our law enforcement does. And we weren’t willing to give up that authority.”
The Mayor’s disclosure was part of his answer to a question by KGFW’s Andrew Mihm asking if he was concerned about the lack of ability to hold the Two Rivers Public Health Department Board accountable.
“These are all things that we’re gonna look at when things settle down and we get into a new norm. Whatever that’s gonna looks like,” Clouse said. “We’re gonna assess that and say, ‘what does it mean? What are the rules and the roles of our local health board?'”
Regarding TRPHD’s denial of Buffalo County and the City of Kearney’s request for location information related to positive COVID-19 cases so first responders can be better prepared, Clouse said, “If Two Rivers is the only one doing it, we’re not gonna waste our time with them. We’ll just continue moving forward. We’ll just keep doing what we’ve been doing and we’ll just deal with it.”
The State’s Directed Health Measure for the Two Rivers Public Health Department area was quietly extended until May 31.
Given that the City did not enter into the agreement with TRPHD, we asked Mayor Clouse if that made the DHM voluntary.
“We haven’t looked that far into it yet but believe it is a state directive that would supersede anything we would do,” Mayor Clouse told us in a text message. “KPD is not aggressively issuing citations but encouraging compliance and have been successful.”
