Food inspector retiring after 27 years of service to Morgan County
Story and Photos by David Blanchette
An impending visit by the food inspector shouldn’t be a scary thing for Morgan County food establishments.
“I never sit behind my desk and go, ‘How many violations can I write today?’” said Morgan County Health Department Food Program Manager Linda Day. “My goal is, how can I help them. How can I educate them, show the employees and managers how they can fix something, how they can make it better so there are no issues in that establishment.”
That has been her philosophy for the last 27 years, and after Day’s long-awaited retirement on December 31, it will be her successor’s mantra as well. Day has spent a year training her replacement and has imbued her with that spirit of inspector-establishment cooperation.
“You are always going to have some issues, a restaurant cannot be perfect. They can do their very best, but occasionally you’re going to have an issue,” Day said. “So we just have to work with them, and they work with us, and we get it under control.”
Day knows what it feels like to be on the receiving end of an inspection. She helped to open the Ponderosa in Jacksonville when it took over the old Bonanza Restaurant, and she worked there for seven years, becoming the general manager. However, Day was looking for a job with a retirement plan and benefits, and that’s when she saw the newspaper ad for an environmental health inspector with the Morgan County Health Department.
The health department hired Day in October 1996, but there was one catch – Day would have to train herself.
“I had no one who was stepping down who could train me so I just kind of moved into that position,” Day said. “There were some very stressful and nerve-wracking times where I didn’t know the answer.”
“But I had an administrator who would help, and I could call the Illinois Department of Public Health in Springfield,” Day said. “I would reach out to other health departments and ask, ‘What do you do about a certain situation?’ I got a lot of help, and the next thing you knew, it came naturally to me and I just did it.”
Day’s job for the last 27 years has been performing inspections at any facility that serves food including restaurants, day care centers, nursing homes, hospitals, convenience stores and taverns. She mainly looks for critical issues, what are officially called priority issues, things that could cause harm or make somebody sick. These critical issues include temperature violations, cross-contamination, personal hygiene practices, toxic chemicals, and pests like rodents and roaches.
Morgan County uses inspection and enforcement codes handed down by the State of Illinois that are based on those used by the federal Food and Drug Administration. The county’s food inspection ordinance has guidelines concerning how issues should be addressed, and establishments are given up to 14 days to correct priority issues. But Day often works with those establishments to correct the issues on the spot.
“Sometimes if it’s just a temperature issue, the pot of soup wasn’t quite hot enough, they can keep cooking it until they get it to the correct temperature,” Day said. “Or if there’s cross-contamination, maybe they have raw chicken stored above other foods, they can take that container and put it on the bottom shelf and they have fixed it while we were there.”
The inspectors also examine the condition of the establishment’s floors, walls, ceilings and maintenance with an emphasis on correcting these other issues as soon as possible.
“They want to do it right,” Day said. “When we have a food establishment that corrects things while we are there, it makes me feel proud for them.”
That’s often easier said than done, Day said, in the post-COVID environment where it’s hard to keep trained employees on the job. Day has also encountered situations that took a lot more time and effort to correct.
“I used to go in and then come out and say ‘I think I’ve seen it all,’ then I’d go into another establishment some time later and go ‘oh, wow,’” Day said. “But for the most part everything goes pretty smoothly.”
Smoothly is how the new MCHD Food Program Manager, Stephanie Adams, hopes things will go when she officially takes over for Day on January 1, 2024. Adams is grateful for the year she has had to train while working alongside Day.
“Some places are very welcoming, they’re like ‘Oh hey, how’s it going,’ and some places freak out a little bit, they holler, ‘the health department is here!’” Adams said. “But I feel that most establishments are pretty welcoming. They know it has to happen, it’s not a choice.”
Adams started at the Morgan County Health Department as a contact tracing worker during the COVID pandemic. After that, knowing that Day’s retirement was approaching, MCHD Administrator Dale Bainter asked Adams if she might consider working in heath inspections. She agreed, and soon started accompanying Day on inspections.
“At first it was completely overwhelming, things that the average citizen doesn’t understand,” Adams said. “The way that kitchens in restaurants or grocery stores operate. The public doesn’t see how much work goes into running an establishment, and we have to go in and critique them and potentially find issues.”
“When I started my fear was that I was going to have to make a bunch of people mad. You see it on TV, the health inspector says ‘I’m shutting this place down,’” Adams said. “But it’s not like that at all. I prefer to help because we want all of our establishments to flourish and be healthy and clean.”
Adams worked at Passavant/Jacksonville Memorial Hospital starting in 2009 as a certified nursing assistant tech and in registration before joining the health department.
“Linda has laid a pretty good foundation for me and it’s been wonderful to work with her,” Adams said. “If I can’t find the answer, she will always have her phone on and I can call her.”
For her part, Day has “enjoyed every minute” of her 27-year career and looks forward to doing a lot of camping with family members during retirement. And will the food at the campsite be properly handled and prepared on her watch?
“Oh, for sure!” Day said.
