Health Staff Can’t Shake Takeover Feeling Drawn-Out Talk Of Commissioners Taking Control Breeds Uncertainty, Tests Morale

The people who guard the public’s health are feeling a little queasy.

For more than a year, a possible takeover by county commissioners has hung over the Spokane County Health District. Employee apprehension intensified late last month, when commissioners Steve Hasson and Phil Harris balked at a committee’s recommendation that they abandon the idea, saying they want more time to think about alternatives.

Critics describe the move as a power play, designed to give commissioners more control over environmental regulations. Some employees in the environmental health division fear for their jobs.

“I’m certainly not going to buy a new car right now,” said one, who didn’t want to be identified.

Adding to the uncertainty was the recent announcement that Dr. John Beare, the well-liked health district director, will retire at the end of the month. At drinking fountains and in break rooms, people already talk like Beare is gone after seven years.

“He was our anchor and we’re adrift,” said clerk/typist Loni Daly. “He was so solid.”

Beare said his departure was long-planned and had nothing to do with the commissioners’ overtures toward the district. But he acknowledges that he’s as frustrated by the uncertainty as any of his 260 employees.

“More than anything else, I think staff feels, ‘Let’s make a decision and get on with it,”’ said Beare.

City Councilwoman Roberta Greene, a new member of the district’s board of directors, is sympathetic.

“If I were there as an employee, I would have a very insecure sense of things right now,” Greene said. “They (commissioners) need to relieve the anxiety” by making a decision about the district’s future.

It was the health district, under direction from its board, that implemented Spokane’s controversial needle exchange program, carried out a ban on laundry detergents containing phosphates and imposed tougher regulations against teen smoking.

Under a 1993 state law, counties can take over health districts, meaning county commissioners alone would set public health policy.

Harris and Hasson, along with former Commissioner George Marlton, voted last year to claim the district on Jan. 1, 1997. At the same time, they appointed an advisory committee to make sure they were making the right decision.

Early last month, a majority of the advisory committee told commissioners to drop the takeover, recommending instead that the health board be expanded to include two health-care professionals.

Employees were relieved, saying they felt the district would become too political and less effective under county rule. Harris is critical of the agency’s treatment of developers, saying it is overbearing. In his eight years on the health board, Hasson has disagreed with some septic regulations the board has imposed.

The employees’ relief was short-lived. Commissioners on June 25 passed a resolution upholding the planned takeover - at least until they have time to study other alternatives. They sent the issue back to the committee for more consideration.

Commissioner John Roskelley, who supported the committee’s recommendations against a takeover, joined Harris and Hasson in voting for the resolution, saying he wanted to keep alive the possibility of expanding the board as the committee recommended.

Harris said he agrees the board needs to be changed, but not the way the committee suggested.

Noting that commissioners represent both rural and urban residents, Harris said the current makeup leaves the city “over-represented.” He’d like to eliminate some or all of the positions reserved for City Council members.

Nobody should fear a county takeover or change on the board, said Harris, who contends that giving commissioners more clout would “depoliticize” health issues.

“I’m as confused as anybody about why (the City Council and health district employees) are so threatened by that becoming a county department,” Harris said. “Health departments across the state work very well.”

Harris contends the county is paying more than its fair share to run the health district.

He complains it was unfair of the city to withdraw more than $500,000 it had contributed to the health district. City officials reclaimed the money when commissioners started talking takeover, saying they didn’t want to risk losing it to the county.

No one knows how long the advisory committee will study the proposed takeover this time around, or when commissioners will make a final decision. If commissioners take no further action, the district will become a county department the first of the year.

In the meantime, health district employees are left wondering whether their jobs or programs would survive a takeover. The uncertainty may even make it more difficult for county residents to learn about some programs.

“We’re running out of brochures,” said Lyndia Vold, who supervises adolescent health programs. “We aren’t sure if we should go ahead and reprint or - if we’re going to be a department (of the county) - redesign it.

“So, for now, we’ll do without.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Health district Formed in 1970, the health district is governed by a board that includes all three county commissioners, three City Council members and two representatives from small towns. It deals with everything from contagious diseases to restaurant inspections to regulations for septic tanks.