No-confidence vote for health district head

A misfired e-mail has landed Dr. Kim Thorburn in hot water.

Or hot coffee, as the case may be.

Thorburn, the high-profile head of the Spokane Regional Health District, received a no-confidence vote Thursday from the district’s board of directors.

Board members said the 6-1 vote was over espresso stands and e-mails. That doesn’t mean she’s going to be fired, board members said, but the majority wants Thorburn to take a more business-friendly approach to enforcing health rules.

Spokane County Commissioner Kate McCaslin, who is retiring at the end of the year, had requested the executive session that led to the no-confidence vote. She asked for the closed-door discussion, she said, because of a series of e-mails she exchanged with Thorburn about espresso stands.

Earlier this year, food safety inspectors from the health district began requiring espresso stands to hook up to sewer and water service. Some coffee hut owners complained and asked for waivers of the rule.

The health board got involved in late October, directing Thorburn to use discretion in how she handled enforcement.

Thorburn said after the October meeting that the board’s vote wouldn’t change what she was doing because she already exercised discretion.

The comment, reported in The Spokesman-Review, prompted McCaslin to send Thorburn an e-mail:

“Did you not understand the Board’s directive?” McCaslin wrote, in part, in her Nov. 5 e-mail. She also asked for a list of the names of the espresso stands and owners that were involved in the controversy.

That’s when Thorburn hit the “send” button too soon. Her sarcastic reply to McCaslin breaks off in mid-sentence.

Her Nov. 5 response e-mail begins:

“Kate, I’ve thought a lot about it and I’ve decided how to apply rules with discretion. I will go to each coffee stand and tell them I’m from the health district and need to test their coffee. If I like the coffee, they won’t have to hook up. If I don’t like it, they will.”

“You misquote me,” Thorburn’s e-mail continues. “I said that the board’s directive is what I already do. If you hadn’t repeatedly so rudely interrupted me during the board meeting, I might have been able to explain that. A waiver request goes to the program. If the entity requesting a waiver is dissatisfied with the …”

The e-mail ends there.

McCaslin responded in a Nov. 7 e-mail that Thorburn’s comments bordered on insubordination.

Thorburn responded on Nov. 8 that she’d pressed “send” early, then she wrote that she would not provide a list of espresso stands.

“For one, we don’t have that list,” Thorburn wrote. “More important, you have, on at least one occasion, encouraged an establishment to launch a complaint against us. This resulted in considerable work for us and no change in the outcome, a waste of public resources. I have had it with your abuse of power.”

Other health board members were Cc’d on the e-mail exchange by both McCaslin and Thorburn.

Besides the e-mails, Thorburn’s approach to rule enforcement with espresso stands was a focus of the board’s closed-door conversation preceding the public vote, McCaslin and other board members said.

McCaslin described the e-mails as “unprofessional at best and insubordinate at worst.”

The discussion about Thorburn happened in executive session because it was a personnel matter. The vote was taken in open session. Board Chairman David Crump cast the dissenting vote. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Other board members said in interviews Thursday that they want Thorburn to take a less heavy-handed approach to enforcing rules with espresso stands and other businesses.

Three of the board members who voted Thursday have served for less than a year, and one has served just over a year.

Longtime board member McCaslin said the espresso stand issue is just a recent example of a difference of opinion between Thorburn and the board.

“There’s this continuing attitude on the part of Dr. Thorburn that I’m not exactly sure she understands or does she care about what the board wants,” McCaslin said Thursday.

Dick Denenny, a Spokane Valley city councilman and health board member, voted with the majority. But he said that the board has to take some responsibility for expressing more clear direction to Thorburn.

Board members want “a strong educational process of helping industry and business comply, using as much discretion as is reasonable,” Denenny said.

Thorburn received a 6.9 percent raise and an excellent performance review in July in a unanimous board vote, with McCaslin absent from the meeting. Thorburn makes $125,000 annually. She had not received a raise since 2002.

Health district employees praised Thorburn’s work Thursday.

“Her focus has been on prevention and education to improve the health of our community,” said Lyndia Vold, the health district’s director of assessment.

Torney Smith, health district administrator, said that while Thorburn’s e-mails could have been written “with more thought,” the health board made its decision based “on limited information.”

“I welcome the board being more engaged and informed,” Smith said. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for the decisions (Thorburn) has made.”

Reached Thursday evening, Thorburn said: “I have no comment.”