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Technically his chain of command and supervisors are the state government. Elrich had his back and defended him vigorously over the emails. I suspect he resigned due to something with his direct supervisors and it could be related to him vacationing in France against CDC guidance, like maybe threatening to leak a story to the press.

Direct supervisor = Chief of MD Health department? Gayles is pretty far up the chain. I doubt he's reporting to mid-level managers.

He’s not as high up as you think. His direct supervisor is the Deputy Secretary for Public Health Services who reports to the Secretary of the Department of Health who reports to the Governor.

He's the County's Heath Officer and has powers associated with that position, regardless of who he reports to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Technically his chain of command and supervisors are the state government. Elrich had his back and defended him vigorously over the emails. I suspect he resigned due to something with his direct supervisors and it could be related to him vacationing in France against CDC guidance, like maybe threatening to leak a story to the press.

Direct supervisor = Chief of MD Health department? Gayles is pretty far up the chain. I doubt he's reporting to mid-level managers.

He’s not as high up as you think. His direct supervisor is the Deputy Secretary for Public Health Services who reports to the Secretary of the Department of Health who reports to the Governor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Technically his chain of command and supervisors are the state government. Elrich had his back and defended him vigorously over the emails. I suspect he resigned due to something with his direct supervisors and it could be related to him vacationing in France against CDC guidance, like maybe threatening to leak a story to the press.

Direct supervisor = Chief of MD Health department? Gayles is pretty far up the chain. I doubt he's reporting to mid-level managers.

Anonymous wrote:
Technically his chain of command and supervisors are the state government. Elrich had his back and defended him vigorously over the emails. I suspect he resigned due to something with his direct supervisors and it could be related to him vacationing in France against CDC guidance, like maybe threatening to leak a story to the press.

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Anonymous wrote:Something's up since he didn't mention what his new job will be. People generally announce their decision to take a new position. They don't just resign in a void.

I agree. Something very strange...and to use reasons about harassment from people a year ago over private schools is also ridiculous. He should have resigned then if that were the case.

He will get harassed in any high profile position. That's the nature of the beast today. Constant threats against public officials and their families. Moving won't stop that, sadly.

The way he resigned also demonstrates someone who seems rather unprofessional. There is CDC guidance against traveling to France, he vacationed there anyway. Then resigned without warning while on vacation and without giving people a heads up.

The emails he received were undeserved, but he’s not covering himself in glory.

Did no one really know? Elrich isn’t a fool, maybe he advised Gayles not to go and once he did then asked for his resignation.

Technically his chain of command and supervisors are the state government. Elrich had his back and defended him vigorously over the emails. I suspect he resigned due to something with his direct supervisors and it could be related to him vacationing in France against CDC guidance, like maybe threatening to leak a story to the press.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something's up since he didn't mention what his new job will be. People generally announce their decision to take a new position. They don't just resign in a void.

I agree. Something very strange...and to use reasons about harassment from people a year ago over private schools is also ridiculous. He should have resigned then if that were the case.

He will get harassed in any high profile position. That's the nature of the beast today. Constant threats against public officials and their families. Moving won't stop that, sadly.

The way he resigned also demonstrates someone who seems rather unprofessional. There is CDC guidance against traveling to France, he vacationed there anyway. Then resigned without warning while on vacation and without giving people a heads up.

The emails he received were undeserved, but he’s not covering himself in glory.

Did no one really know? Elrich isn’t a fool, maybe he advised Gayles not to go and once he did then asked for his resignation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something's up since he didn't mention what his new job will be. People generally announce their decision to take a new position. They don't just resign in a void.

I agree. Something very strange...and to use reasons about harassment from people a year ago over private schools is also ridiculous. He should have resigned then if that were the case.

He will get harassed in any high profile position. That's the nature of the beast today. Constant threats against public officials and their families. Moving won't stop that, sadly.

The way he resigned also demonstrates someone who seems rather unprofessional. There is CDC guidance against traveling to France, he vacationed there anyway. Then resigned without warning while on vacation and without giving people a heads up.

The emails he received were undeserved, but he’s not covering himself in glory.

Did no one really know? Elrich isn’t a fool, maybe he advised Gayles not to go and once he did then asked for his resignation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So is the France vacay the real reason he resigned then?

Nobody knows. Maybe he was sitting on the beach enjoying the nice weather and said "screw it with all the stress of my job". He can probabl make some $$ being a CNN commentator. I know when I take vacation, I have time to reassess my career.

I suspect he got a better job offer. However, given how everyone else is behaving, I don't see why people hold him more accountable than their own actions. He probably gave up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something's up since he didn't mention what his new job will be. People generally announce their decision to take a new position. They don't just resign in a void.

I agree. Something very strange...and to use reasons about harassment from people a year ago over private schools is also ridiculous. He should have resigned then if that were the case.

He will get harassed in any high profile position. That's the nature of the beast today. Constant threats against public officials and their families. Moving won't stop that, sadly.

The way he resigned also demonstrates someone who seems rather unprofessional. There is CDC guidance against traveling to France, he vacationed there anyway. Then resigned without warning while on vacation and without giving people a heads up.

The emails he received were undeserved, but he’s not covering himself in glory.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something's up since he didn't mention what his new job will be. People generally announce their decision to take a new position. They don't just resign in a void.

I agree. Something very strange...and to use reasons about harassment from people a year ago over private schools is also ridiculous. He should have resigned then if that were the case.

He will get harassed in any high profile position. That's the nature of the beast today. Constant threats against public officials and their families. Moving won't stop that, sadly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something's up since he didn't mention what his new job will be. People generally announce their decision to take a new position. They don't just resign in a void.

I agree. Something very strange...and to use reasons about harassment from people a year ago over private schools is also ridiculous. He should have resigned then if that were the case.

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Anonymous wrote:It is terrible he was getting death and other threats. Absolutely unacceptable.
He was also horrible in this role during the pandemic crisis time.
He probably would have been adequate in 'normal times' dealing with whatever the 'normal' set of issues would be that he would need to manage. But during the pandemic, he was terrible and actually not very science driven.

We have the highest vaccination rate around and relatively lowest transmission of large counties (we were last in the region to go from ‘moderate’ to ‘substantial’)

Nothing to do with gayles. We all drove an hour plus for vaccines on our own in April. A lot of people can and are working from home. Moco’s population (liberal, educated, affluent, covid cautious) is why.

It's both. Rational leadership and rational population (for the most part). You can't just have one, and end up with the vaccination rates and mostly good behavior we've had since March 2020.

Gayles literally outlawed outdoor playgrounds and tried to close private schools that were set to follow the CDC guidelines at the time; he perpetuated restrictions for reopening MCPS-- while other large school districts around the country successfully opened in hybrid fashions. He made the mask mandate in MoCo start at age 2 instead of age 5-- once it was reduced from I think 9 at the initial outset-- and never provided data for that. Much of NOVA with similar demographics/numbers has had an age 5 mandate. I could go on...
I have no idea exactly where the locus of control on this was, but everyone I knew was driving/traveling at least 45 minutes in each direction to get vaccines for a LONG time-- at the least, he did not succeed in any advocacy about getting reasonable amount of vaccines downcounty.
Yes, keeping businesses at very reduced capacity for a while obviously impeded the spread of the virus...but at what cost? A very compliant and risk-averse population is the driver here, IMHO, of a lot of the 'success.'
To his credit, it does appear that he and his team were successful in reaching (from what I've read) harder to reach minority populations who have significant vaccine hesitancy (as illustrated by the inner city of Baltimore and their abysmal vaccine numbers).
But overall? Not rational leadership at all.

Well summarized. Then there were his nasty internal emails regarding a parent who was trying to get more info. He was divisive - everything was class warfare to him. Good riddance.

Member when we were wiping down groceries? That’s because we thought there might be surface transmission. Don’t say this wasn’t a thing because it was. That’s why they initially shut the playgrounds. He also didn’t try to shut down private schools who were trying to follow cdc guidelines. He knew that some private schools had good plans set up and knew others did NOT have good plans. Listen, these are schools not health experts or doctors! So he wanted to work together with them to develop and implement plans that were actually safe. He could not do this if they didn’t communicate their plans to the health dept. As for vaccine access, you can thank Hogan for his allocations to mass sites everywhere except MoCo. That was not Gayles at all who made you drive to six flags. You may think he kept things shut longer than you would have. But you cannot say that anything he did put the community at more risk. He minimized our community spread very effectively and reached all kinds of groups with vaccine hesitancy and access issues. I can’t believe you are whining that your 4 year old or whatever had to play in your own backyard and had to wear a mask and you had to drive 45 minutes twice (when you prob drive 6 hrs to obx like everyone else around here). This man was the one making the tough choices and I hope he knows there are many of us who are thankful for his efforts even as people treated him so incredibly poorly.

Yes, to all of this.

Wow to the pp. talk about revisionist history. He refused to look at any private school plans or work with private schools or entertain the idea that any could open. You have no idea what you are talking about. But. They opened. And everything was fine. Just like everywhere else that opened. You must have family in states where schools opened? I do. Even blue states. The sky didn’t fall. It was fine. Gayles was wrong.

+1. I was never in favor opening without mitigation measures. However, seeing family from other areas this summer, even from just a few hours away in PA, really opened my eyes to just how anxiety ridden and catastrophizing our area is. Family members' kids went to school with masks and hybrid schedules well before ours did, without significant community spread. This area is unhealthy when it comes to its zero-COVID demands.

Same here.

I have family in friends in other parts of the country. Every single kid we know was back in school last year before my kids were. And it was fine.

This area is insane and dysfunctional. Our kids have suffered the most because of it.

It is much easier with smaller schools in smaller school districts. Don't claim "our" kids have suffered. Your kids suffered as you weren't willing to make it work. Some of "our" kids were just fine in virtual and made the best of the situation vs. complaining.

Don't complain when your kids get sick to us. We'll remind you you decided it was all fine.