By FRED GLYNN
Hamilton County Councilor
Hamilton County government is an entity that sometimes gets overlooked in our county. I once had a conversation with one of our county mayors who referred to county government as the back-of-the-house restaurant function that is vital to the business, but customers do not always see.
Some of the most important functions that serve all county citizens are done on the county level. From judicial services, county sheriff, to our award-winning parks department, work is done every day to serve our constituents.
In the past year alone, we put a business aid program in place for locally owned small businesses that were forced to close due to the pandemic, started the groundwork to build a shelter for domestic violence victims, received the only AAA bond rating for a county government in Indiana, and will be engaging in performance audits of all departments to ensure that we are spending taxpayer dollars as efficiently as possible. While all this is vital it pales in comparison to the work done by some of our pandemic leaders in Hamilton County government.
When the pandemic started, our Emergency Management Department and Health Department moved quickly and decisively. Numerous volunteers were recruited and trained. Mass vaccination sites were opened at Riverview Hospital and the Hamilton County Fairgrounds. Currently there are more than 50 vaccination sites in our county. When I received the vaccine at Riverview hospital it was a well-organized and flawless process from start to finish.
As a result of all this hard work, 198,421 Hamilton County residents have been fully vaccinated as of Thursday, Aug. 5. Westfield has the highest vaccination rate at 93.7 percent while Carmel sits at 80 percent. Overall, 70.7 percent of eligible Hamilton County residents have been fully vaccinated. Because of these high vaccination numbers, counties surrounding Hamilton are seeing much higher infection rates than we are.
With this type of success, some politicians will try and take credit for other people’s accomplishments. Personally, I would like to thank our leaders who work behind the scenes – our Hamilton County pandemic leaders from the Hamilton County Health Department, Hamilton County Emergency Management, and every other county government official that put in the work. Hats off to you and God bless.
Fred Glynn serves on the Hamilton County Council representing District 1, which includes nearly all of Carmel and western edge of Fishers. You can reach him at fred.glynn@hamiltoncounty.in.gov.