Monroe County health department shakeup continues: 2 removed from board, 1 resigns

The shakeup at the Monroe County health department continued Thursday (Oct. 29), when county commissioners voted 2–1 to appoint three new members to the board of health and remove two existing members.

The terms of the removed members were not set to expire until the end of 2028. The removals and appointments were effective immediately. Action by commissioners came at their regular meeting on Thursday morning.

Later in the day, board chair Lisa Hanner-Robinson resigned. Robinson started serving as the county council’s appointee to the board of health starting in mid-February 2024.

At the start of the day, there were two vacancies on the seven-member board. The net effect of Thursday’s changes leaves two vacancies on the board, which is still working to restore stable leadership to the department.

Just two days earlier, on Tuesday, the department resumed regular walk-in services after shutting its doors to walk-in visitors Friday and Monday. The interruption followed the abrupt resignation of health officer Sarah Ryterband on Oct. 22, six weeks after she fired health administrator Lori Kelley.

The board changes also come as the department could face a new potential public health concern. At Thursday’s commissioners meeting, health department staff reported that Indiana’s confirmed measles cases have climbed from 28 on Oct. 8 to 74 as of Oct. 28. Nearly a third of those infected have required hospitalization. But no suspected or confirmed cases have been reported in Monroe County this year.

Three appointments, two removals

The three new appointees announced Thursday were Kay Fields, Jon Macy and Stephen Coover. Fields is a Bloomington nurse practitioner with IU Health. Macy is an Indiana University professor of applied health science. Coover is deputy chief of community risk reduction with the Monroe Fire Protection District.

Fields and Macy were appointed to terms expiring in December 2028, while Coover’s term runs through November 2030.

The two members who were removed are Michael Teague, a physician who had been the board’s vice chair, and Stephen Pritchard, a dentist. Both had terms scheduled to run through Dec. 31, 2028.

Commissioner Julie Thomas bundled the three appointments and two removals into a single motion, saying that the removals were necessary to “make room” for the new members.

Commissioner Jody Madeira asked county attorney Jeff Cockerill how she could, from a procedural point of view, register support for the additions to the board, but opposition to the removals. Cockerill told her she could request that the question be divided into separate votes, or just vote against the combined motion. Madeira chose to vote against the combined motion, which passed 2–1, with Thomas and commissioner Lee Jones voting in favor.

Before action by the commissioners at Thursday’s meeting, the board had two vacancies. From an arithmetic point of view, three new members could have been appointed with removal of just one current board member.

After the meeting, Thomas responded to a B Square question about why two removals were necessary. Thomas pointed to the statutory requirement that no more than four members of the seven-member board belong to the same political party. The B Square has not yet sorted out the partisan balance of the five who were serving and how that would factor into the appointments.

Part of the equation is the fact that Teague’s seat is appointed by the commissioners, but only on recommendation from the mayor of Bloomington. Under state law, the county commissioners appoint one board member from a list of three recommendations submitted by the executive of the county’s most populous municipality, which is Bloomington. That means the mayor recommends candidates, but the commissioners make the appointment.

Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson responded to an emailed B Square question about the now-pending recommendation, saying she had not yet heard from commissioners about the vacancy. The mayor added, “This is a difficult appointment to make due to the qualifications needed, and we have no one remaining on our list at this time.”

Thomas told The B Square after Thursday’s meeting that another appointment is in the pipeline, but commissioners are awaiting the mayor’s recommendation. She also noted that Kay Leach’s term expires at the end of December. Thomas predicted the board would have all seven seats filled by January.

Robinson’s resignation

There will be an additional seat to fill beyond the one that was known at the end of Thursday’s meeting of the county commissioners. Mid-afternoon on Thursday, Lisa Hanner-Robinson resigned from the board. It was a reaction to the events of Thursday morning.

In a sharply worded two-page letter dated Thursday (Oct. 29), and sent that afternoon, Hanner-Robinson resigned effective immediately, saying that commissioner Julie Thomas had made “a power play that undermines the board’s independence.” She wrote that the removal of Teague and Pritchard sent a message that “board members are simply political pawns.”

Hanner-Robinson has served on the board since mid-February 2024, when she was appointed to serve by the Monroe County council.

Hanner-Robinson accused Thomas of putting political power ahead of public health services, particularly those serving vulnerable residents. She also criticized county council liaisons Peter Iversen and David Henry, saying that repeated requests for meetings and cooperation had been met with resistance and uncooperative behavior.

The letter named all three commissioners in condemning the removals, but Madeira voted against them. Hanner-Robinson also said in her letter that the changes left the board unable to conduct business for lack of a quorum. But the three appointments and two removals left six of seven board seats filled. Even after Hanner-Robinson’s resignation, five members remain, enough to assemble the four-member quorum required under state law.

Hanner-Robinson concluded her letter by saying the decision by commissioners that morning was the “final straw.” She added, “I have served Monroe County as both a board member and Chair, with professionalism, and good intention.” She concluded, “I can no longer serve in this environment.”

The five members left serving on the board after Thursday’s changes are the three new appointees (Kay Fields, Jon Macy and Stephen Coover) and two incumbents (Kay Leach and Kevin Moore). The next regular meeting of the board falls on Nov. 19.

New state law allows removal without cause

Thursday’s removals were possible under a change in Indiana law that took effect July 1, 2026.

The amendment to state law allows county commissioners to remove their own appointees to local boards of health at their pleasure, without establishing cause. The key requirement to remove a health board appointment without cause is that the board of commissioners has to have the same members as when the appointment was made.

Before the change to state law, a board member could be removed for missing three consecutive regular meetings, missing four regular meetings in a calendar year, or failing to perform the statutory duties of the office. Those grounds are still available under the revised law.

The distinction matters because, of the five members serving before Thursday’s vote, only three were subject to removal without cause by the current commissioners: Teague, Pritchard and physician Kevin Moore.

The appointment votes for those three members are documented in CATS recordings of commissioners meetings:

• Pritchard was (re-)appointed Jan. 9, 2025
• Teague was appointed Aug. 21, 2025
• Moore was appointed Jan. 22, 2026

All three appointments were made by current commissioners Thomas, Jones and Madeira. The other two members were outside the new stathority of the commissioners to remove members at their pleasure.

Board chair Lisa Hanner-Robinson, a physician, was appointed by the county council, not the commissioners. Leach, a registered nurse, was last appointed March 8, 2023, when Penny Githens served in the commissioners seat now held by Madeira. Because the membership of the appointing board has changed, Leach is not subject to removal without cause under the new provision.

The commissioners removed a health board member three years ago, based on absences from meetings.

Leadership turmoil and interrupted services

Thursday’s reshaping of the board follows six weeks of turmoil involving the department’s two top positions.

Ryterband fired Kelley on Sept. 10. Kelley’s attorney subsequently alleged that Kelley had experienced workplace sexual harassment and had been fired in retaliation for complaining. Ryterband denied those allegations in a statement at the board’s Oct. 22 meeting.

At that meeting, board members were preparing to consider Ryterband’s own removal. Instead, she announced her immediate resignation, ending the planned hearing before it began.

The department suspended walk-in services Friday, Oct. 23, and Monday, Oct. 26, because it lacked a health officer authorized to approve certain official documents and services.

At an emergency meeting Monday, the board approved a temporary contract with Paul Broderick, who has served as Morgan County’s health officer since 2011. The appointment allowed the Monroe County department to resume normal operations Tuesday. At their Thursday meeting, commissioners voted unanimously to ratify his contract.

The interim contract runs for no more than three months and does not authorize Broderick to hire, fire or discipline department employees. The board must still recruit a permanent health officer, while the health administrator position remains vacant.

The board also faces unfinished work stemming from an after-action report on the department’s response to a meningococcal disease case at Bloomington High School South in May. The report identified shortcomings in communications, medication availability and emergency coordination.

Looking ahead, Madeira explains dissent

Two days ago, at Tuesday’s county council meeting, councilor David Henry said he had begun contacting members of the board of health to discuss the department’s future. He said he wanted the board empowered to do its work, with elected officials keeping their hands off rather than interfering in its decisions.

Henry called for “hands off from, maybe, meddling from this room as they try to figure out the next steps.” Henry confirmed to The B Square that he meant to include with his reference not just the county council, but also the commissioners, who use the same Nat U. Hill Room at the historic county courthouse for their meetings.

At Tuesday’s meeting, he said, “I think it’s vitally important that we trust the five folks that we have there,” Henry said. He added that the council should be “in very much of a support mode until we can get things stable there.”

Two of those five members were removed on a 2–1 vote of commissioners less than two days later.

The health board action was one of two 2–1 votes at Thursday’s commissioners meeting, with Madeira dissenting both times. The other involved acceptance of a housing inventory report introduced by Thomas at the previous meeting, when Madeira declined to second a motion to accept it. Because Jones was absent, the motion died for lack of a second.

Madeira said Thursday that the report provided useful information about housing construction but did not support a conclusion that housing needs had been met. She said that determining whether housing demand has been satisfied would require analyzing affordability, vacancy rates and other indicators, not simply comparing the number of units built with earlier projections.

At the end of Thursday’s meeting, Madeira returned to the health board vote to explain her dissent. She stressed that she supported the new appointments, but was concerned about the consequences of removing existing members.

“I do definitely endorse the addition of people to the health department,” Madeira said. “I just am always leery of removing people, lest it have a chilling effect on board service.”