TOLEDO, Ohio — The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department Board of Health held a special meeting about school orders. This is the third time the board has met in the last two weeks about the orders, issued Nov. 25.
A lot of sitting around happened in 1 p.m. special meeting on Tuesday. Immediately after calling the meeting to order, the board voted to move to executive session.
We were told by Board of Health President Dr. Johnathon Ross that the reason they were going to executive session was to discuss a temporary restraining order filed against the board by local schools.
The board was in executive session for nearly an hour.
During that time, members of the community were active in the chat feature on Zoom, sending links about COVID-19 and schools and also voicing their frustration.
In November, the board passed a resolution barring athletics from taking place on school property. Protests, as well as some schools choosing to continue to play, followed. Legal action also challenged the board's decision.
Once members of the board came back from executive session, they told the public no action was taken after discussion with their lawyer. The health department said they had no further comments and were waiting a court case and pending litigation.
"We expect that there will be further discussion in the court either Thursday or Friday. At that point, we'll at least have information about the temporary restraining orders," said Dr. Ross. "I'm sorry, there's going to be no additional discussion today. I'm sure that disappoints a lot of people but that's the advice of our council."
The meeting was adjourned no more than 10 minutes after the board returned from executive session.
The Board of Health was scheduled to have another special meeting Dec. 9. That meeting has been canceled, likely because of what happened during the special meeting on Dec. 8.