COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – Branch County Commissioner Tim Stoll was selected as the new Chair of the Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency Board of Health during the board’s first meeting of 2025 last Thursday.
Brent Leininger of Hillsdale County was named the Board Vice-Chair.
The Board by-laws call for the Chair and Vice-Chair positions be elected according to a rotation by the three counties in the agency. This year’s Chair represents Branch County while the Vice-Chair comes from Hillsdale County according to the rotation.
Stoll spent three years as the Chair of the Branch County Board of Commissioners before he passed the gavel for this year to Randall Hazelbaker.
In other business, Health Officer Rebecca Burns reported Pertussis cases continue in the district and state. Pertussis is also known as whooping cough and can cause serious illness in people of all ages but it is most dangerous to infants.
Pertussis is a vaccine preventable disease but Burns reported they continue to see declining childhood immunization rates leaving more infants and children at risk for severe pertussis illnesses.
Personal Health and Disease Prevention Director Heidi Hazel reported COVID-19 cases have increased starting in early December but are lower than this time last year.
She added they have been working with a local nursing facility to help them manage a recent outbreak. They had 26 residents and 19 staff diagnosed with COVID-19. During this time, they also had three staff members with Influenza A and one staff member with RSV.
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