In case you missed it: the Public Hospital District is spending up to $20,000 to hire a consultant named Karma (from California, of course) to guide the board through a process of self-assessment. If what goes around really does come around, the assessment will start with that decision. If $20,000 sounds like a lot of money to spend on board education, you probably didn't know that there is a whole industry of consultants making a living off of hospital execs chasing accreditation standards. If it makes you feel any better, there is sure to be a PowerPoint presentation and a flip chart. Besides, there is a precedent for Californians helping our rural hospital district. Remember when we spent $80,000 for an executive search firm in San Francisco to conduct a nation-wide search for a CEO? The nation-wide search that ended in Sequim?

As if they were trying to be sure the public part of the Hospital District are getting their money's worth for the consultation, the board spent the August 2nd meeting giving the consultant a lot to assess. Commissioner Tony DeLeo went on public record describing fellow commissioner Kees Kolff's actions as divisive, underhanded and manipulative. Commission chairperson Jill Buhler added hypocritical, vitriolic  and offensive. And repeated manipulative. Apparently, changing the seating arrangements at the commissioners' meeting hasn't improved their working relationships. The recording gets interesting around 1:07:30.

Kolff, the newest member of the board, was not present at the meeting to defend himself, but he was given voice--more or less--by DeLeo, who was apparently so overcome with emotion that he had difficulty reading aloud an email sent by Kolff to his fellow commissioners. What got him so worked up? Kolff had suggestions about the timing of the consultation (he thought it would make more sense if it happened after the election, so the commissioner following DeLeo could participate) and he thought the consultation should include consideration of the commissioners' responsibility for the quality of healthcare in our public hospital district as well as the (already planned) consideration of the commissioners' fiduciary responsibility. Shocking, I know! Of course, couching his e-mail in criticism of the way the previous meeting was run was bound to set Kolff's fellow commissioners' teeth on edge, and sending the e-mail to the commissioners who, due to Open Public Meetings Act guidelines, can't all respond individually without violating the law, was certainly ill-advised. Kolff's email did mention he was recovering from a recent surgery. Maybe post-op meds affected his judgment. I'm prepared to give him a pass, and I'll tell you why.

Kolff was elected on a wave of public support for the idea of holding the CEO of Jefferson Healthcare accountable to the public hospital district. He ran not just against his opponent, Chuck Russell (who Buhler supported), but also against incumbent commissioners who didn't even require a written evaluation of Mike Glenn's job performance before voting to give him a 3.25% raise when he was already Jefferson county's highest paid administrator. It was always going to be, as DeLeo described the commissioners in his remarks, "a dysfunctional family." Since Kolff was elected, I have listened to him approach his responsibilities on the board with eagerness, intelligence and creativity, only to be continually outvoted and rebuffed. No wonder he is frustrated with the way the meetings are run. As a voter, I'm frustrated, too. It is past time for Kolff to have mastered Robert's Rules of Order and the Open Public Meetings Act, but he continues to put up a good fight for the people who elected him. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say for himself at the next regular commission session, on August 16th.

Meanwhile, it can't hurt to highlight the words of Matt Ready, who thoughtfully commented toward the end of the meeting, "I don't think it is necessary to characterize people's ideas as vitriolic or manipulative...I think we can just say, 'I disagree with your idea,' or 'Hey, you're not following the best process here.' Sometimes we characterize other people's opinions as having such malice and really it just that people have different ideas."