We heard from county council member Jon Scanlon and former council member Carol Frazey on the pros and cons of changing the structure of Whatcom County’s Board of Health (BOH).
Carol Frazey made the argument for maintaining our current structure where the Board of Health is comprised of the same people who sit on the County Council (CC/BOH).
Her reasons:
- Electoral accountability: because we elect the CC, we therefore also elect the BOH and can vote them out
- The Public Health Advisory Board (PHAB), currently comprised of 21 members with diverse health expertise and experience, provides the CC/BOH with the expertise it needs to make decisions and policy
- Not all matters that the BOH considers are purely health issues, but have social and political implications, which an elected CC/BOH member may be better able to consider (for example, vaccination requirements during COVID)
- An elected CC/BOH may be more diverse-minded, while an appointed board may be the result of pressures to be like-minded
- Finally, this is not an urgent issue and Whatcom County would do well to learn from the experiences of other WA counties that are making similar changes in their BOHs
Jon Scanlon made the case for establishing a separate, appointed Board of Health (BOH).
His reasons:
- Greater membership diversity: He offered an example of a possible BOH comprised of 3 CC members, 2 mayors of Whatcom County cities/towns, 2 tribal members, 3 community members/healthcare consumers
- This membership diversity would provide broader perspectives informing decision making
- Combining elected and non-elected members on BOH would reduce political influence of decision making
- There would be much more public health expertise on the BOH, which would facilitate decision making, and a PHAB could be preserved to maintain broad and deep health expertise
- Respondents to previous public surveys on this question favor a separate BOH
We heard good reasons for both positions on this issue! Currently there is an Advisory Group composed of members from the CC as well as the PHAB who will make a recommendation to the County Council, and they will then vote to decide: Who Should Sit on the Whatcom County Board of Health? The video of this presentation can be found on our Healthcare page.
The next meeting of the Healthcare Issues Team will be July 21st from 10 am to 11:30 am on Zoom.
Vicki Thomas and Dorie Belise from the Climate Team will present Does This Plastic Make Me Look Fat?
Microplastics are pervasive in our environment and in ourselves. How pervasive? Should we be concerned? Come learn and bring your questions!
Reminder: there will be no Healthcare Issues Team meeting on Zoom in August. Enjoy the beautiful Pacific-NW summer! Our next meeting will be September 15th on Zoom. As always, we welcome your suggestions for topics and/or speakers.