I see that the director of the Multnomah County health department, Jessica Guernsey, has resigned effective December 21. She says she needs to spend time with family.
She’s had plenty of it since July. That’s when the county chair, Jessica “Chevy” Vega Pederson, was embarrassed by the revelation that the county’s “harm reduction” program was handing out tinfoil and straws to street junkies for smoking fentanyl. Included in the revelations was the outrageous news that the county had paid money for the rights to a guide to “boofing,” a process whereby one ingests street drugs anally.
Now, remember, Vega P. was in on this program all along, but when the reporters started asking about it, she got all red in the face and put it on hold; her word-salad shooter generated a statement saying that Guernsey and her staff hadn’t done enough “outreach.” Next thing you know, Guernsey needed to spend more time with her family. Hmmm.
As the O story on her resignation points out (alas, behind the Paywall of Pity) the county has had seven different health department directors in fewer than that many years. During that time, there have been five behavioral health directors and four public health directors. Vacant positions in the county health department now stand at something like 18 percent of all positions.
Can you say “mismanagement”? Of course, a lot of the dysfunction arose during the reign of Deadly Deborah, the Latest Kafoury, but JVP’s leadership, now in its 11th month, has no doubt made it worse. In the article, she’s still talking out of both sides of her mouth regarding “harm reduction.” Nobody seems to know what the heck is going on. Meanwhile, Portland’s reputation as a destination resort for addicts grows stronger by the day.
Portland could have had an actual doctor, Sharon Meieran, as the county chair. Instead the voters insisted on buying a Vega. Already the bumpers are falling off.