Update health district law

Sun., Nov. 22, 2020

I encourage all those concerned about the Dr. Lutz firing fiasco to email Sen. Andy Billig, Rep. Marcus Riccelli, and Rep. Timm Ormsby asking them to change the law regarding composition of county health district boards.

At present, it appears politicians must be a majority of board members and the rest can be any Tom, Dick or Mary, with no medical expertise required of any of them!

If public accountability requires some politicians, at least the law should require any non-political members to have medical backgrounds of some sort, to offset donor, economic and other pressures on the political members, giving health and safety a loud voice on the board. It’s not just Spokane: the Chelan-Douglas County health board has been going through similar turmoil. It’s time to update the law.

Don Peters

Spokane

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