Guest Opinion: “Orcas Island Health Care District” Commission Holds First Meeting

— by Leif —

On Tuesday afternoon [May 8], our brand new “Health Care District” commission held its first formal meeting. It began with with some foundational work as all good structures do.

The assembled commission [Diane Boteler, Richard Fralick, Pegi Groundwater, Art Lange, and Patty Miller] and community participants spent an hour under instruction by attorneys Randy Gaylord and Amy Vira in how to conduct an open public meeting in spirit and by the rules as well as how to manage public document recordkeeping.

There are new materials and resources to help new public commissions get started on the right footing, and Ms. Vira and Mr. Gaylord were very helpful in addressing the nuances of conducting business in the public eye. For their part the members of the new commission had some great questions about the mechanics of transparency.

To this observer it seems akin to conducting a cooking show complete with food prep and puzzling out the recipe, not just throwing together your pre-assembled mise en place for the perfect photogenic omelette. And make sure all compost gets taken out and the final product is Instagrammed, as far as record keeping goes.

Our new commission proceeded under the chairmanship of Mr. Fralick to zip through their published agenda, correcting the “Public Hospital District” to something more appropriate as above, etc. etc. The fun part came as our new commissioners held a convocation of equals to structure their task ahead. Ms. Miller suggested formation of subcommittees to address Tech, Legal, Finance, and Staffing concerns. These were quickly claimed by:

Tech -(Boteler, Miller) – website
Legal – (Groundwater, Lange) – bylaws, attorney
Finance – (Miller, Fralick) – accounts, EIN
Staffing – (Boteler, Groundwater) – interim superintendent

Priorities were quickly set for a number of initial projects including a new “OrcasHealth” domain and website which will be paid for out-of-pocket until a financial footing is established. Mr. Lange is deeply into formal bylaws and ethics statements. And each subcommittee is explicitly to include participation by interested members of the public. This is you.

Dr. Boteler observed as well that during last Saturday Market many approached her to offer suggestions and she suggested building on this to assure an informal public presence to promote similar conversations. This team wants to be accessible! It seems a shame that excluding myself and Mr. Bangs, former candidates, a reporter and Mr. Heisinger of the [Orcas Healthcare] Coalition, there were but three other community members there.

The alacrity and insight with which this brand new team formed up and dispatched with these initial tasks demonstrates our good choice in trusting them to this complex work of creation. Each was obviously well prepared by past experience and present consideration to lay this new foundation to last for years to come.

Having voted them by acclaim to this role, we as a community need to demonstrate our support by attending a meeting, sharing our thoughts with them, and following their progress. It will help with future conversations when we get into the weeds.

Future meetings will be on Tuesdays from 4-6PM at the Fire Station meeting room. Weekly meetings will be held through the summer to get this new District off the ground. Future proposed agendas should be available for review Mondays via Orcas Issues and soon on their new website. They’ll be setting up an email list.

Stay tuned!