Boulder and Weld battle (to the death?) over masks and COVID responsibility

By Rae Ellen Bichell, Kaiser Health News ERIE — Whenever Larry Kelderman looks up from the car he’s fixing and peers across the street, he’s looking across a border. His town of 28,000 straddles two counties, separated by County Line Road. Kelderman’s auto repair business is in Boulder County, whose officials are sticklers for public health and have topped the county website with instructions on how to report COVID violations. Kelderman lives in Weld County, where officials refuse to enforce public health rules. Weld County’s test positivity rate is twice that of its neighbor, but Kelderman is pretty clear which…READ MORE: https://northdenvernews.com/boulder-and-weld-battle-to-the-death-over-masks-and-covid-responsibility/
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By Rae Ellen Bichell, Kaiser Health News ERIE — Whenever Larry Kelderman looks up from the car he’s fixing and peers across the street, he’s looking across a border. His town of 28,000 straddles two counties, separated by County Line Road. Kelderman’s auto repair business is in Boulder County, whose officials are sticklers for public health and have topped the county website with instructions on how to report COVID violations. Kelderman lives in Weld County, where officials refuse to enforce public health rules. Weld County’s test positivity rate is twice that of its neighbor, but Kelderman is pretty clear which side he backs. “Which is worse, the person gets the virus and survives and they still have a business, or they don’t get the virus and they lose their livelihood?” he said. Boulder boasts one of the most highly educated populations in the nation; Weld boasts about its sugar beets, cattle and thousands of oil and gas wells. Summer in Boulder County means concerts featuring former members of the Grateful Dead; in Weld County it’s rodeo time. Boulder voted for Biden, Weld for Trump. Per capita income in Boulder is nearly 50% higher than in Weld. Even their COVID outbreaks are different: In Boulder County, the virus swirls around the University of Colorado. In Weld County, some of the worst outbreaks have swept through meatpacking plants. It’s not the first time County Line Road has been a fault line. “I’ve been in politics seven years and there’s always been a conflict between the two counties,” said Jennifer Carroll, mayor of Erie, once a coal mining town and now billed as a good place to raise a family, about 30 minutes north of Denver. Shortly before the coronavirus hit Colorado, Erie’s board of trustees extended a moratoriumon new oil and gas operations in the town. Weld County was not pleased. “They got really angry at us for doing that, because oil and gas is their thing,” Carroll said. Most of the town’s businesses are on the Weld side. To avoid public health whiplash, Carroll and other town leaders have asked residents to comply with the more restrictive stance of the Boulder side. The feud got ugly in a dispute over hospital beds. At one point, the state said Weld County had only three intensive care beds, while Weld County claimed it had 43. “It made my job harder, because people were doubting what I was saying,” said Carroll. “Nobody trusted anyone because they were hearing conflicting information.” Weld’s number, it turned out, included not just the beds in its two hospitals, but also those in 10 other hospitals across the county line, including in the city of Longmont. Longmont sits primarily in Boulder County but spills into Weld, where its suburbs taper into fields pockmarked with prairie dog holes. Its residents say they can tell snow is coming when the winds deliver a pungent smell of livestock from next door. Longmont Mayor Brian Bagley worried that Weld’s behavior would deliver more than a stench: It might also deliver patients requiring precious resources. “They were basically encouraging their citizens to violate the emergency health orders … with this cowboy-esque, you know, ‘Yippee-ki-yay, freedom, Constitution forever, damn the consequences,’” said Bagley. “Their statement is ‘Our hospitals are full, but don’t worry, we’re just going to use yours.’” So, “for 48 hours, I trolled Weld County,” he said. Bagley asked the city council to consider an ordinance that could have restricted Weld County residents’ ability to receive care at Longmont hospitals. Bagley, who retracted his proposal the next day, said he knew it was never going to come to fruition — after all, it was pro…

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