Accusations that two county commissioners tried to pressure the Davis County Health Department director into resigning are inaccurate and irresponsible, the commission chairman told the county board of health Tuesday.
Commission Chairman Gayle Stevenson, reading from a letter, denied that he and Commissioner William Peters pressured Dr. Enrico Leopardi to quit his post as the health department director.Leopardi submitted an unexpected, handwritten letter of resignation at the board's May 1 meeting, one day after his meeting with Peters and Stevenson. Then two weeks later he rescinded it, saying the commissioners had pressured him into resigning.
The health board reluctantly accepted the resignation, and then agreed with Leopardi's rescision in a special meeting called May 15, retaining him as director.
Leopardi retained an attorney, Zane Gill, and presented the health board with a letter at the May 15 session from the Health Officers Association of Utah accusing the commissioners of usurping the health board's legal powers.
In his reply to the association, made up of the health department directors from all of Utah's counties, Stevenson said the charges of coercion are untrue, irresponsible, and damaging to the county.
Stevenson agreed with the association's statement that Leopardi enjoys a "unique legal position," being appointed by the health board. But the appointment is with the concurrence of the commissioners, he added, and the commission is additionally responsible for the department's remaining 60 employees and its policies and procedures.
"Protecting the legitimate concerns of those valued employees is and will continue to be our primary objective when meeting with any department head regarding their leadership role and regarding statements made about them by their employees," Stevenson wrote.
"I honestly thought we were doing this in as professional, discreet, and objective a manner as possible in our meeting April 30," according to Stevenson. "In that meeting, no one asked Dr. Leopardi to resign his position.
"If Dr. Leopardi felt pressured and coerced, he never gave any indication of such feelings and voluntarily arrived at his own conclusions. It was the day after our meeting that his resignation was given to the board of health giving ample time for any further discussion if he desired," Stevenson told the board.
Stevenson told the board members, all unpaid volunteers, that he respects the work they do and wants better communication and contact with the board in the future.
Leopardi told the board the April 30 meeting, also attended by county personnel director Steve Baker, "came like a bolt out of the blue" and his impression coming out of the session was that the commissioners wanted his resignation, which he wrote out the next morning at the board meeting.
"I perceived exactly as I wrote in my letter. I didn't lie when I said I was pressured and coerced. That's how I felt, how I perceived the meeting," he said. "I did not lie about my feelings."
The squabble over Leopardi's on-and-off resignation has already had some fallout, with health board member Dr. Douglas B. Nielsen, a Bountiful physician, submitting his resignation as of July 1.
In his resignation letter read at Tuesday's board meeting, Nielson cited the time demands of the board position and the recent problems as his reasons for quitting.
The board also adopted a policy setting up an annual review and evaluation procedure for the department director and the division heads within the health department. The board agreed to work with Baker to draw up the evaluation and performance audit procedures.