Cowlitz prosecutor: county's controversial health board appointments violate the law

Failure to seek applicants a sign that cronyism tainted selection process

The Cowlitz County Prosecutor’s Office determined Thursday that the county commissioners violated state law by appointing new members to the local health board without publicly seeking applicants for the positions, commissioner Dennis Weber said Thursday morning.

Weber said the commissioners must now step back and restart the process and that the three appointments made Tuesday are voided for now.

The commissioners, according the prosecutor’s office, failed to give the public reasonable advance notice that three terms for non-elected members of the board were expiring this month and did not adequately solicit applications for the positions. (The prosecutor’s office serves as the county government’s civil attorney.)

“A local board of health must actively recruit applicants for non-elected member positions of the local board of health in a manner that solicits a broad pool of applicants that represent a diversity of expertise and lived experience,” according to state regulations.

The legal finding negates the commissioners’  reappointment of Kelly Lane and the new appointments of Bill Youngren and Lorna Stuart.

The commissioners received applications only from Lane, Youngren and Stuart. Weber said he had opposed Youngren’s and Stuart’s applications because they did not appear qualified for the positions. Commissioners Arne Mortensen and Rick Dahl consented to the appointments, while Weber was  unable to attend the meeting Tuesday due to illness.

This whole appointment process is fraught with gross political favoritism and secrecy, at least with regard to Youngren’s appointment. It’s an unfortunate local trend, as the same problem has afflicted Longview City Council politics with the termination of city manager Kris Swanson and appointment of Jim Duscha to replace her.

Youngren, a retired certified nursing assistant,  is a longtime ally of Commissioner Mortensen and is a member of the MAGA right wing of the Cowlitz Republican Party.  He has been an outspoken critic about the safety of COVID vaccines and of social distancing mandates. 

It is clear that Mortensen, Dahl and Lane all wanted to limit the applicant pool to guarantee that someone of the same ideological bent would be added to the board.

In contrast, health board member Mary Jane Melink, whose term expired this month, was not notified that her term was expiring. Nor was she told that she needed to reapply.

Melink frequently and vociferously butted heads with Mortensen, Lane and Dahl about their  “medical-freedom resolutions”  for spreading falsehoods about vaccine safety and masks. The resolution passed on a 4-3 vote despite opposition from local medical providers.  Lane, Mortensen, Dahl and board member  Lindy Campbell voted to adopt it.

Melink said she only found out she was about to be displaced by reviewing the agenda for Tuesday’s board meeting. She said she doubts she would have been reappointed even had she been aware of her need to reapply.

“I take responsibility for not asking the question about the process as terms were expiring … but I have to say I have served on many boards and never been asked to ‘fill out a new application,’ “ she wrote to the commissioners this week.  

Melink asked the board to “please put your personal political agendas aside and start engaging with the health care leaders in this community who can help you understand the real-life health issues and struggles of the people in our community.”

She said the board over the last two years has done nothing to improve health in Cowlitz County. Mortensen had a well-publicized tiff with the county health officer for what he considered biased information about COVID.

Lane, Mortensen and Dahl have routinely ignored my requests for comment in the past.

Under state law, the county health board is made up of the three elected county commissioners and four non-elected members the commissioners appoint to represent community groups and interests.

The appointees by law are supposed to be selected to represent certain community interests. Those are:

• Alyssa Fine, who represents the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. Her term expires in next year. 

• Lane, appointed to represent consumers of health care, was reappointed Tuesday.

• Lindy Campbell, a former school nurse who did not seek reappointment as representative of  public health providers. Commissioners Dahl and Mortensen voted to replace her with Youngren.

• Melink, who represented “other community stakeholders.” The two commissioners replaced her with Stuart, whose application describes as a former physical therapist who now volunteers to help homeless youth and women in prostitution, according to The Daily News.

The appointments of Stuart and Youngren and reappointment of Lane are now voided, and the search process has to start anew whenever the health board meets again. It normally meets on the last Tuesday of every month — July 30 next month — but the commissioners could convene a special meeting earlier, Weber said.

The health board cannot counter state mandates. It is responsible for protecting public health, setting local public health regulations and enforcing state and local regulations.