Where's the outrage? Can it be that citizens are so appalled at the really nasty, inexcusable fight going on between the mayor's office and the Charleston-Kanawha Health Department over the relocation of the latter that they are speechless? Or are people intimidated by the ugly tenor of threats coming from the mayor? Do people need to be reminded that we are the public, that both the mayor's office and the Health Department are public servants, and we are not being served at all by this mess?

I beg City Council not to vote on any budget that ordains a cut to the funding of the Health Department. Don't let yourselves be seen as a bunch of "haves" who are willing to harm "have-nots," because that is exactly the way it will be seen.

I daresay, although I haven't conducted a poll, that every single council member has health insurance, and can otherwise afford to get something like a flu shot from their family doctor. The Health Department also provides that service, and is a critical part of the tenuous and fragile web of medical care entities available to those who have neither. People like that poor lady who died in the doorway of her drugstore one cold dark morning not so long ago.

Have you forgotten that, or did you pay attention? She was poor. She was sick. She was uninsured. She had an inadequate social network to get her meds for her, or perhaps she had to sign in person for them.  She depended on her vouchers. All this meant she was driven by her circumstances to get out in the morning cold and dark to get her meds. And she died. Alone. It is horrifying to contemplate. It makes the very heart and soul scream out in rage to the sky that this kind of thing happens here. HERE. In Charleston.

And for the wealthy, the high and mighty among us, what agency conducts the discreet investigations that track, warn, counsel and give direction to both individuals and institutions like the public schools about everything from venereal disease daisy chains, epidemic outbreaks, to head lice, to which no one is immune? You got it, the public Health Department.

Any cut in funding to the public Health Department puts all of us at risk, period.

The latest salvo from the mayor's office is a threat to audit the Health Department's books because it wants to hire an outside, independent individual to identify possible new locations for the city-county agency. This person is Philip Angel. I know Angel. He's an honorable man. So was his father. In fact, public service is bred in the man's bones going back to his grandmother, Hannah Solomon of Chicago.

I believe it is a reasonable move by the Health Department, given the degree of animosity coming from the mayor, who has decided to play hardball and who appears to be determined to get the Health Department onto the third floor of Morris Square, beside the new ballpark. The ballpark and its environs has always been a pet priority of the mayor's, dating at least from his first campaign.

Morris Square, a very public space, is not appropriate for the Health Department for a host of reasons, starting with inadequate or problematic parking (especially during baseball season), the discreet nature of much of the agency's work and the privacy needs of people who go there. And let's not forget about handicap accessibility to the third floor. In the event of fire, or even a drill, elevators can't be used. And the handicapped are a significant part of the public served by the Health Department.

By all means, audit the Health Department's books. I am certain everyone needs a complete and thorough education about what the agency does for us all and where its money goes. Now that the ghastly polio epidemics, the scourge of my childhood, are thankfully over, public health has had a lower profile. I am willing to bet that folks will be amazed at what they do.

Finally, county residents outside of Charleston who complain about the user fee proposed by our mayor and passed and increased by council, need to remember that the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department is one of those necessary services the city provides them. Reasonably, the agency can't fairly serve the entire county if located anywhere else.

Claymore, a Kanawha County teacher, is a Gazette contributing columnist.

  Where's the outrage? Can it be that citizens are so appalled at the really nasty, inexcusable fight going on between the mayor's office and the Charleston-Kanawha Health Department over the relocation of the latter that they are speechless? Or are people intimidated by the ugly tenor of threats coming from the mayor? Do people need to be reminded that we are the public, that both the mayor's office and the Health Department are public servants, and we are not being served at all by this mess?

I beg City Council not to vote on any budget that ordains a cut to the funding of the Health Department. Don't let yourselves be seen as a bunch of "haves" who are willing to harm "have-nots," because that is exactly the way it will be seen.

I daresay, although I haven't conducted a poll, that every single council member has health insurance, and can otherwise afford to get something like a flu shot from their family doctor. The Health Department also provides that service, and is a critical part of the tenuous and fragile web of medical care entities available to those who have neither. People like that poor lady who died in the doorway of her drugstore one cold dark morning not so long ago.

Have you forgotten that, or did you pay attention? She was poor. She was sick. She was uninsured. She had an inadequate social network to get her meds for her, or perhaps she had to sign in person for them.  She depended on her vouchers. All this meant she was driven by her circumstances to get out in the morning cold and dark to get her meds. And she died. Alone. It is horrifying to contemplate. It makes the very heart and soul scream out in rage to the sky that this kind of thing happens here. HERE. In Charleston.

And for the wealthy, the high and mighty among us, what agency conducts the discreet investigations that track, warn, counsel and give direction to both individuals and institutions like the public schools about everything from venereal disease daisy chains, epidemic outbreaks, to head lice, to which no one is immune? You got it, the public Health Department.

Any cut in funding to the public Health Department puts all of us at risk, period.

The latest salvo from the mayor's office is a threat to audit the Health Department's books because it wants to hire an outside, independent individual to identify possible new locations for the city-county agency. This person is Philip Angel. I know Angel. He's an honorable man. So was his father. In fact, public service is bred in the man's bones going back to his grandmother, Hannah Solomon of Chicago.

I believe it is a reasonable move by the Health Department, given the degree of animosity coming from the mayor, who has decided to play hardball and who appears to be determined to get the Health Department onto the third floor of Morris Square, beside the new ballpark. The ballpark and its environs has always been a pet priority of the mayor's, dating at least from his first campaign.

Morris Square, a very public space, is not appropriate for the Health Department for a host of reasons, starting with inadequate or problematic parking (especially during baseball season), the discreet nature of much of the agency's work and the privacy needs of people who go there. And let's not forget about handicap accessibility to the third floor. In the event of fire, or even a drill, elevators can't be used. And the handicapped are a significant part of the public served by the Health Department.

By all means, audit the Health Department's books. I am certain everyone needs a complete and thorough education about what the agency does for us all and where its money goes. Now that the ghastly polio epidemics, the scourge of my childhood, are thankfully over, public health has had a lower profile. I am willing to bet that folks will be amazed at what they do.

Finally, county residents outside of Charleston who complain about the user fee proposed by our mayor and passed and increased by council, need to remember that the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department is one of those necessary services the city provides them. Reasonably, the agency can't fairly serve the entire county if located anywhere else.

Claymore, a Kanawha County teacher, is a Gazette contributing columnist.