Public protector no more

By KENNETH HART
The Independent

ASHLAND January 07, 2009 10:12 pm

— Boyd County’s top restaurant cop is off the beat — for the time being, at least.
Suzanne Smith retired Dec. 31 as environmental health supervisor for the Ashland-Boyd County Health Department. She had been with the department for 25 years.
During her career, she forged a reputation as being highly professional and tough, but fair, with restaurant operators.
She closed more than one dining establishment for health code violations. However, she said her main focus was always education, rather than punishment.
“One of the goals I set when I took this position was that I wanted to make a difference,” she said. “And I think that’s what I’ve done.”
Under Smith’s stewardship, the heath department’s environmental health section has received numerous awards and honors. Upon her retirement, she received a note from the state Cabinet for Health Services commending her for a job well-done.
Smith — who didn’t want to give her age — said she decided to step down because changes in the state’s retirement system made it financially advantageous for her to do so. However, she said she was leaving the door open for a possible return.
Under state personnel policies, retirees can go back to work 90 days after retirement but not to the same positions from which they retired. Once that period has expired, Smith said she wouldn’t mind going back to the health department as an inspector, not an administrator, if there’s an opening for her.
She said her return was by no means preordained, though, because state workers are prohibited from making any such arrangements.
Smith was replaced as environmental health supervisor by Steve Rudd, previously an inspector. The department also employs another inspector, Brent Barber.
Jo Williams, food services director for both the Ashland and Fairview school systems, worked closely with Smith over the years and said her knowledge, leadership and professionalism would be sorely missed.
“She was always business-like, but she was also someone you felt comfortable talking to if you had a problem,” she said. “You knew she was always going to be there for you. I think the community felt that same way about her.”
Smith said one of the highlights of her career was working with Dr. Vaughn Eskew, the health department’s former director. Eskew, who retired 21/2 years ago, “always gave environmental health all the support it needed,” she said.
While restaurant inspections were what Smith was best known for, she said those were only part of her duties. She also inspected mobile homes, swimming pools, school classrooms, tattoo and body piercing studios and other establishments where the public’s health was involved.
Smith said she made no apologies for being a stickler for regulations.
“What we do affects everyone in this community,” she said. “If we don’t do our jobs, people can get sick.”
Asked what was the most disgusting thing she ever saw in a restaurant during the course of her career, Smith said there were two that came to mind.
One, she said, was a low-boy freezer in the kitchen of one establishment that had been unplugged for several days and still had food in it. When she opened the door, the inside of the appliance was teeming with cockroaches, she said.
Another time, she said, she had an inkling that an inspection was not going to go well when the first thing she saw upon entering the establishment was a female employee tweezing her eyebrows at the cash register.
“When I went into the kitchen, there were employees cleaning shrimp on the floor — and I mean on the bare floor, not on a mat or anything — and they were smoking while they were doing it,” she said.
Sights such as those would be enough to turn most people off on the idea of dining out, and, true to form, Smith said she still rarely eats anywhere other than home. However, she said that was mostly because she preferred her own cooking. Most local restaurants, she said, do a good job of maintaining cleanliness standards.
Smith also said she had been offered items as bribes — ranging from steaks to use of a boat — if she’d overlook health code violations. She said she never took them, though, because she valued her reputation and her integrity too much for that.
During her retirement — however brief it might be — Smith, who has a master’s degree in education from Morehead State University, said she would like to find some sort of part-time job just to keep busy. She also said she planned to perhaps do some traveling “to someplace where there’s salt water.”
She said it was difficult for her to do nothing because she had worked since she was 15, when she hired on at Third National Bank, where her mother, the late Bette Zornes, was employed.
Zornes died two years ago, and Smith said one of her major regrets was “that she’s not here to enjoy this retirement with me.”
Smith also said she hoped to spend some time visiting her adult sons Christopher, who works for the Food and Drug Administration in Washington D.C., and Andrew, a graphic designer who lives in Detroit.
KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.

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