No offense to the Yellowstone County Health Officer, but giving an award to the health officer who shut down businesses, and naming him the "Business Champion"- that seems crazy.

As Evelyn Pyburn with the Big Sky Business Journal told us, the Billings Chamber of Commerce is giving the Business Chamption award to Yellowstone County Health Officer John Felton.

Evelyn Pyburn: Because of his edicts, there are people out of business, and and I just don't know how you would equate that into being a business champion. I mean he went out and he got his own special law enforcement to go around to businesses to make sure they were complying, and trying to shut them down if they didn't comply with all the protocols. So yeah, I mean, even if you agree that those things were necessary it is still not being a champion of business.

 

Aaron Flint: It's crazy to me. Of all the people that you could have recognized, you know what I mean, as being champions of business who really had to step up during tough times to keep their business afloat, to keep food on the tables of their employees. I mean, heck, even grab a waitress who lost money and was trying to, you know, put her kids through school and trying to work full time all while a single mom- name her the business champion, you know what I'm saying? There's 1000s of business champions you could have named...no offense to Mr. Feldon, he wasn't as bad as Missoula or Gallatin Health Officers, but I think that's because, in part, they knew that the political headwinds are against them, Yellowstone County voters were were saying enough is enough. And when they finally did away with the restrictions that he wanted to keep in place, we've got better numbers than Gallatin County. So it just doesn't make sense at all.

Here's the audio of Evelyn's chat with Aaron Flint:

What's your take? Drop me an e-mail aaron(at)montanatalks.com

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