After the November 2016 general election, Cheri Van Hoover, who has spent more than 30 years as a health care provider and educator, said she felt health care, at both the national and local levels, was in peril. She wondered what she could do to help.

In addition to attending hospital commission meetings of Jefferson Healthcare, she reached out to newly elected Jefferson County Commissioner Kate Dean. It was Dean, said Van Hoover, who suggested by text that Van Hoover connect with hospital Commissioner Kees Kolff.

“I got together with Kees. We met at the co-op coffee shop and chatted. We talked about the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) and how he had run his campaign, what was successful, what he would have done different,” recalled Van Hoover, adding that she also reached out after that to commission chair Jill Buhler and had a similar meeting with her.

Van Hoover wants voters to know that story, understand the connection, because she says she’s still hearing people talk about how Kolff recruited her in order to form a voting block on the hospital board with him and Commissioner Matt Ready against Commissioner Jill Buhler and Commissioner Marie Dressler.

“I heard the same thing early on, and it always struck me as so utterly strange and bizarre. It’s unfounded in fact,” said Van Hoover of talk that Kolff asked her to run to join him and Ready.

“I’ve actually heard people say I would be Kees’ puppet. I’ve heard that. And anyone who has ever known me for 15 minutes should know how ridiculous that is,” says Van Hoover, 63.

“Part of my character is my independence. That’s just the way I am,” she said, adding that while she has attended about four programs in 13 years at the church Kolff attends, Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, she’s not a member.

Early on in Van Hoover’s campaign, Kolff donated $100, and Van Hoover returned the money. She said she didn’t want to appear to be too close to anyone on the board and didn’t want to appear “to be beholden to anyone on the board.”

“I am very grateful for Kees with the time he spent talking to me and I’m grateful for Jill for the time she spent talking to me,” she said.

BOARD RELATIONSHIP

Van Hoover is keenly aware that Ready and Kolff are seen, correctly or incorrectly, as being one faction on the board, and incumbent Commissioner Tony DeLeo, who is departing after 44 years on the board, and Dressler and Buhler are seen as being part of another faction on the board.

“I do see some difference in philosophy between Matt and Kees and Marie and Tony and Jill about the appropriate function and scope of the board and whether it is more appropriate for the board to have a more narrow, specific local focus or whether it should play a role in advocacy,” she said. “And I don’t have a strong opinion either way.”

Ready and Kolff, for example, have been advocating for the board to take a strong stand on the issue of single-payer health care.

Van Hoover says all of the people on the board are intelligent, passionate people dedicated to the health of the community, and she wants to join them.

“And I believe it would be possible for us to work smoothly together,” she said. “Whether it should be narrow or broad, my main concern would be building a cooperative, collaborative relationship on the board because I have tremendous respect for all of them and I believe that smooth working relationships would add to the efficiency of the board and more effective decision making.”

‘FALSE RUMORS’

Van Hoover said she is disappointed that some people appear to have made judgments about her and her campaign and that “much of this is based on false rumors.”

And an underlying concern appears to be the future of CEO Mike Glenn.

As for Glenn, Van Hoover repeated what she has said at campaign forums before and after the primary: “I think Mike is doing a great job and I’d hate to see him leave. For whatever reason, it appears some people choose not to believe me and I don’t know why.”

OUTSIDE CONSULTANT

Both Van Hoover and her opponent, Bruce McComas, were invited to participate at a consultant-led board retreat that was aimed at resolving some of the issues the board was having in communicating. The retreat was a public meeting.

“I saw real work done to heal relationships and identify the kinds of behaviors that will contribute to a smoothly functioning board,” she said.

Although both prospective commissioners were invited to attend and speak at the retreat, they did not actively participate, she said.

Van Hoover said there is a dynamic to relationships – in families as well as on boards like Jefferson Healthcare. “And there’s never one person to blame for anything when people are in a relationship,” she said.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

As for what she’s hearing on the campaign trail, access to health care and provider retention are the two concerns she’s heard most.

“I hear frequently about people having difficultly getting in to see their doctors and short appointment times to see their doctors and having to change their doctors because their doctor left town. There’s quite a lot of concern about that,” she said.

She said the vast majority of people she talks to are happy with the direction the hospital is going and also are happy with the care they receive.

As for the issue that always comes up – that of whether a single-payer national health care program is important, Van Hoover said, “My opinion is obviously that universal health care is a really desirable ultimate goal nationwide, and it might be accomplished on the state level, but it’s not something we could accomplish single-handedly at the local level.”

Van Hoover added, “If it would cut down on conflict [on the board], I would have no problem with doing an occasional letter, lobbying, but it’s not going to be a major focus for me as a commissioner as it’s not the most relevant.”