Author: jxindivisible

In most of our country the way elections work frustrates and angers potential voters. The two major political parties go through their machinations. The parties each offer a few candidates in a primary election in which, in most states, the voters get to cast one vote for one candidate for each elected office of only one party. (Washington State is a little unusual with its “top two” primary system.) Many voters ignore the primary election, beginning to pay attention only before the November general election when we are asked to choose among the candidates offered by the two major parties and (sometimes) a few other candidates.  Vast amounts of money and energy are expended on advertising and voter outreach, which is mostly designed to make us more disgusted with one candidate than the others, and sometimes succeeds in making us disgusted with all of them. Finally, we either turn away–or we hold our noses and cast a vote for “the lesser of evils.” Mostly, we don’t vote for “third party” candidates, no matter how appealing, for fear of the spoiler effect, the chance that one’s vote cast for such a candidate will take away a vote from the less evil of the two more likely winners. Voting with the spoiler effect in mind incentivizes a two party system–a system the Founders did not foresee.

There is a better way. The time has come to consider “ranked choice voting” (RCV). The states of Maine and Alaska have widely adopted the method. There are active movements to consider such adoption in many other states, counties, and municipalities.

Ranked choice voting is harder to explain than it is to demonstrate. This evening, Monday, December 14, from 7-8PM PST the Spokane Chapter of FairVote Washington is holding a Zoom meeting explanation of Ranked Choice Voting. I recently attended a similar chapter meeting. I found it fun and informative. If you are not a resident of Spokane County or  Washington State, you are still welcome to attend. The majority of the presentation applies to any voting area. You will find it an hour well spent. Sign up here: https://www.mobilize.us/fairvotewa/event/364899/  and invite your friends. Vicki Dalton plans to attend the Zoom presentation and will take questions. Vicki is our highly respected, very practical, very non-political (although nominally a Democrat) Spokane County Auditor–the official who oversees the mechanics and details of all elections that occur in the county.

Once the mechanics of RCV are understood, the method appeals to voters of all political stripes (even though some incumbent politicians will certainly view RCV as a threat to their power). RCV as a method promises to diminish partisan rancor and division–by disincentivizing negative advertising. (FairVote Washington is a non-profit group, organized as a 501(c)(3).)

Please sign up. It’ll be an hour well spent.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

P.S. If you would like a preview of the RCV, click and watch an excellent series of very short, animated youtube videos on the concept. Produced by CGP Grey, they’re entitled “Politics in the Animal Kingdom.” They’re  fun, thoughtful, and explanatory. (Note: These videos are meant for an audience in the U.K. where “First Past the Post” is what our current voting method is called and Ranked Choice Voting is called “Single Transferable Vote”. Also, the videos expand the concept of Single Transferable Vote to a broader reorganization of voting than is currently contemplated in the U.S. Nonetheless, as a presentation of general concept the videos are terrific.)

P.P.S. In Washington State the first step toward trying out RCV in any election is a slight modification of state law that would allow the voters within the state to adopt RCV as their method of choosing their elected officials at some level of government. There is already bipartisan support for such enabling legislation–and, if the legislature can’t get it done, there are plans to put such enabling legislation to the people as an initiative in 2022. 

First, A Calendar Item: Next Monday, December 14, from 7-8PM PST  the Spokane Chapter of FairVote Washington is holding a Zoom meeting explanation of Ranked Choice Voting. I just attended (by Zoom) a similar chapter meeting. I found it very informative. You will find it an hour well spent, especially if, like me, you are really tired of negative campaigning. Ranked Choice Voting as an election method is spreading across the United States. This is your chance to learn about it. Sign up here: https://www.mobilize.us/fairvotewa/event/364899/   I understand Vicki Dalton, the highly respected Spokane County Auditor–who oversees elections–is planning to attend.

Also THIS EVENING, After we made national news again with a politically motivated terrorist issuing a bomb threat and setting fire in the Spokane Democratic Headquarters.

Support the Spokane County Democrats on Zoom!
TOMORROW, Friday, December 11th
5:15PM – 6:00PM 
By Zoom
Sponsor Levels: $1,000, $500, $250, $100 
Sign-up to sponsor the event today! Contact Katherine@electbobferguson.com to let us know of your sponsor level. 
You can sign up with a donation of ANY size online here: https://act.myngp.com/Forms/-770535090633570560 We will be joined by Spokane Democrats Party Chair Nicole Bishop and State Rep. Marcus Riccelli for an update. 

Today’s Post:
The big news yesterday was the hearing and vote of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. They recommended approval of Emergency Use Authorization for the mRNA vaccine produced by Phizer and its German partner BioNTech for people 16 and over. The FDA is highly likely to take the advice of this committee and grant approval this weekend. That should set the ball rolling for the first immunizations in the U.S. to occur next week. 

I did not attend the meeting, but I did peruse some of the materials presented at the meeting, including the 53 page FDA Briefing Document. More comforting and much easier to read was the peer reviewed presentation of the Phase III trial of the vaccine published in the New England Journal of Medicine, entitled “Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine.” It is worth a click, just to get some idea of what is entailed in a study like this. 

A total of 43,548 volunteer participants in the U.S., Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa were randomized to receive two injected doses three weeks apart of either the vaccine or placebo. Since Covid-19 is widespread in all these countries sending the participants out to live in the community in the way they had  done before their injections offered exposure to the virus (and avoided any need for intentional exposure). At the time of publication (the study is ongoing) the median followup after the second injection was two months. 

We hear “95% protection”? What did that actually mean in the real world of these volunteers? With a median follow up of 2 months and some followup out to around 3.5 months, counting those with symptomatic, test-proven Covid-19 that appeared at least 7 days following the 2nd injection, 162 people in the placebo group became ill and only 8 in the vaccine group. 95% = (162/170)*100. Starting a little earlier (7 days after the 1st injection), there were a total of 10 cases of severe Covid-19, 9 of them in the placebo group and one in the vaccine group. The graph of time vs. accumulating disease incidence is striking. The accumulating disease in the placebo group is a nearly straight line with a slope of about 45 degrees while the vaccine group’s line goes nearly flat (hardly any new cases) two weeks after the first injection. You can find this graph in the NEJM paper or, better, at the end of  Betsy Brown, M.D.’s  Update from an Epidemic December 9 post, along with some additional interesting commentary and links.

Reading the detail in the New England Journal article gives a clear idea what the odds of various reactions to the vaccine are with both the first and second dose. (Hint: plan on feeling crummy for a couple days after each dose.) In the “Discussion” section, the article also provides an update on a couple of lingering questions:

“These data do not address whether vaccination prevents asymptomatic infection; a serologic end point that can detect a history of infection regardless of whether symptoms were present (SARS-CoV-2 N-binding antibody) will be reported later.”

If the vaccine induces an immune response that keeps people from having an asymptomatic infection they could possibly pass along to the non-immune population, that would quell the spread in the population more quickly than if it does not. We do not have that information yet, but it’s coming!

“Although the study was designed to follow participants for safety and efficacy for 2 years after the second dose, given the high vaccine efficacy, ethical and practical barriers prevent following placebo recipients for 2 years without offering active immunization, once the vaccine is approved by regulators and recommended by public health authorities. Assessment of long-term safety and efficacy for this vaccine will occur, but it cannot be in the context of maintaining a placebo group for the planned follow-up period of 2 years after the second dose.”

In other words, it sounds like the folks in the study who received placebo will be offered the vaccine, instead of being left to face the ongoing threat of becoming infected. That seems only fair. One hopes that the 162 people in the placebo group who developed symptomatic Covid-19 so far (including 8 with severe disease) will be some of the last few of the volunteers who have to become ill. We are indebted to these volunteers and wish a speedy and complete recovery to all those who became ill in both groups. 

Obviously, we cannot yet know if some long term complication of the vaccine might show up, but I find these early results and all the detail that comes with them very encouraging. If I were offered the first dose of this vaccine tomorrow I believe I would step right up. I am so done with this…

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

I keep thinking of a piece I encountered on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) website on November 24 entitled, “How the Cherokee Nation has curtailed the pandemic.” It is an intra-national example of what we might have achieved with better leadership. As of mid-November when the U.S. as a whole had tallied 250,000 deaths, the Cherokee Nation had just 33. In terms of the dead as a percentage of population that’s 0.078% dead in the overall U.S. and 0.024% among the Cherokee, a three fold reduction. (I’m using 320,000,000 as the U.S. population and 140,000 as the population of Cherokee Nation tribal citizens in their newly won reservation in northeastern Oklahoma, part of a July 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling designating nearly half of Oklahoma as Native American land.)

The Cherokee people have a long history of ill treatment by the United States government. A people whose land at the time of the colonists spanned a considerable inland territory in the southeastern United States, the Cherokee already had a well-developed matrilineal society, culture and system of governance of their own. In response to the encroaching culture of the colonists the Cherokee developed a writing system and adopted cotton agriculture, Christianity, and aspects of the colonial governance structure. Despite these adaptions to colonial ways the Cherokee were driven west to the Oklahoma territory in the Cherokee removal, essentially an act of ethnic cleansing, carried out under the direction of Andrew Jackson between 1836 and 1939, a part of the story of the Trail of Tears,. (It should surprise no one that Andrew Jackson is one of Mr. Trump’s idols.) The subsequent relations between the Cherokee people, the federal government, the Oklahoma Territory and later the state of Oklahoma is interesting reading, but it is beyond the scope of this post. 

“How the Cherokee Nation has curtailed the pandemic” offers an internal example of what we could have done as a country. Overall we now lead the world with 285,000 dead from Covid-19 occurring in our one country. Even on a per capita basis as a country we are still dismally outstanding, with 86 dead /100,000 we rank 14th among all nations. The Cherokee experience stands out both because of their history and because their numbers, gathered in the same way as the rest of the country, cannot be argued away. Focused as we are on the Covid that surrounds us, it is hard to pay attention to the success of many countries. For example, Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese Covid deaths of <1 per 100,000, South Korean deaths at 1 per 100,000, and Japanese deaths at 2 per 100,000 (compared with the U.S. rate of 86 per 100,000). Instead we tend to hear the word “spike” or “outbreak” and assume things are as bad or worse in other countries than they are here (or we simply dismiss the numbers as lies).

Tomorrow, December 10th, the “Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee” meets to formally consider Pfizer’s application for Emergency Use Authorization for their mRNA vaccine for Covid-19 (click the link for meeting materials) . The meeting runs from 6AM-3PM PST and can be watched at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owveMJBTc2I&feature=youtu.be.  (This is the same vaccine that the United Kingdom approved and is already offering to its citizens–the same vaccine that the Trump administration declined to pre-orderbeyond 100 million doses.

There is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel of Covid sickness and death we face this winter. In the eventual aftermath this pandemic we need to remember, account for, and improve upon our dismal response to this one to better prepare ourselves for the next one.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

For those who took the time to watch last Thursday’s, December 3, meeting of the Spokane Regional Health District’s Board of Health one thing was clear. With the interim appointment of Dr. Francisco Velazquez as the interim District Health Officer local business interests got what they wanted, a doctor who is a creature of the corporate board room and will not make waves in the community.

The Board of Health meeting (watch here) unfolded as predicted (See P.S. in Cut Adrift in Covid).  The meeting lasted two hours and six minutes, thirty-five minutes of which was an “executive session” (which the public cannot hear or watch). The Board emerged from executive session (43:13) with a motion to appoint Dr. Francisco Velasquez as interim Health Director. The motion was made, seconded, and passed by unanimous voice vote within minutes of the Board’s return from executive session. There was no public deliberation. 

Dr. Velazquez appeared on screen during the entire meeting, appearing both before and after the executive session. He was silent, apart from a thirteen minute speech (1:34-1:47) in which he spoke in glowing terms of the staff of SRHD, nodded to other infectious disease issues in the community (Get your flu shot!), offered a brief update on Covid-19 tests. Surely, he met the expectations of those who has just hired him. The Board was relieved of the need to contemplate the grim local pandemic statistics nor did Dr. Velazquez challenge the Board toward any intervention. The message was, “Be calm, the good staff of SRHD has this all under control.”

The contrast between Dr. Velazquez and Dr. Lutz interaction with the Board was striking. Dr. Lutz served (without pay) as a member-at-large of the Board of Health for eight years prior to his appointment as Health Officer two years ago. Dr. Lutz clearly understood the mission of the Health Officer detailed in state law (RCW 70.05.070–copied in full below) to “Control and prevent the spread of any dangerous, contagious or infectious diseases that may occur within his or her jurisdiction.” Dr. Lutz was deeply engaged in those efforts. He appeared at the Board of Health meetings during the pandemic to offer a short fact-filled report of the details of his and SHRD’s efforts to serve that mission, not to offer platitudes and kind words to the Board. 

Commissioner Al French and his business allies got what they wanted from the engineered firing of Dr. Lutz. With Dr. Velazquez as Lutz’ replacement. Mr. French got a compliant Health Officer who attends entire Board meetings and offers flowery speech of little substance when asked to report. Dr. Velazquez face is directed at the Board. Dr. Lutz’ face was directed at the community he was tasked to serve. 

The remainder of the current meeting was all end-of-year congeniality. Commissioner Al French, the man behind the curtain, along with Andrea Frostad, were counted as present at the beginning of the meeting but were not seen in the video and gave no more indication of their presence. Ordinarily, Board of Health meetings are held just ten times a year and are little noticed by the public. The November 5 meeting, in contrast, the one at which the Board voted 8 to 4 to fire Dr. Lutz, was viewed 9,400 times. By the December 3rd meeting public interest waned–just 270 views on YouTube in the two days that followed it. 

How soon after a public outrage that our attention turns elsewhere. 

The pandemic thrust the SRHD Board of Health under the spotlight. We need to remember the eight of the twelve members of the Board who voted to fire Dr. Lutz. Municipal elections happen again in less than a year. In two years there will be five newly drawn county commissioner districts to fill. In the meantime we need to learn enough civics to understand and knowledgeably push for a revamping of the composition of the Board of Health. 

Public Health Action Coalition Team of Spokane (PHACTS) is gathering people interested in furthering these efforts. Check out their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/PHACTSpokane, or email an inquiry to publichealthspokane@gmail.com. KXLY profiled PHACTSand has covered input from City Council President Breean Beggs and State Legislative District 3 Representative Marcus Riccelli. 

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

RCW 70.05.070

Local health officer—Powers and duties.

The local health officer, acting under the direction of the local board of health or under direction of the administrative officer appointed under RCW 70.05.040 or 70.05.035, if any, shall:
(1) Enforce the public health statutes of the state, rules of the state board of health and the secretary of health, and all local health rules, regulations and ordinances within his or her jurisdiction including imposition of penalties authorized under RCW 70A.125.030 and 70A.105.120, the confidentiality provisions in RCW 70.02.220 and rules adopted to implement those provisions, and filing of actions authorized by RCW 43.70.190;
(2) Take such action as is necessary to maintain health and sanitation supervision over the territory within his or her jurisdiction;
(3) Control and prevent the spread of any dangerous, contagious or infectious diseases that may occur within his or her jurisdiction;
(4) Inform the public as to the causes, nature, and prevention of disease and disability and the preservation, promotion and improvement of health within his or her jurisdiction;
(5) Prevent, control or abate nuisances which are detrimental to the public health;
(6) Attend all conferences called by the secretary of health or his or her authorized representative;
(7) Collect such fees as are established by the state board of health or the local board of health for the issuance or renewal of licenses or permits or such other fees as may be authorized by law or by the rules of the state board of health;
(8) Inspect, as necessary, expansion or modification of existing public water systems, and the construction of new public water systems, to assure that the expansion, modification, or construction conforms to system design and plans;
(9) Take such measures as he or she deems necessary in order to promote the public health, to participate in the establishment of health educational or training activities, and to authorize the attendance of employees of the local health department or individuals engaged in community health programs related to or part of the programs of the local health department.

Last Monday, November 30, in the afternoon and evening, the City of Spokane City Council passed an amended version of “The Housing Levy” on a 6 to 1 vote. I wrote a preview on the City Council action on The Housing Levy (ORD C35982) for last Monday’s post (November 30). 

You can watch the November 30, 2020, City Council Briefing Session or the City Council Legislative Meeting by clicking here and selecting it. It’s a considerable time investment to do so, but it is an education in the function of city government. Adam Shanks (Spokesman) reported on the meeting the next day (see below). 

I especially recommend watching Breean Beggs’ pre-final vote comments in the Legislative Meeting Video at 3:14:45. In his five minutes he speaks eloquently of the challenges and complexity of legislating for needed change. Among his comments was a nod to the state Legislative District 3 (central Spokane) legislators (Billig, Riccelli, and Ormsby) who sponsored a state law that authorized municipalies to add a maximum of 0.1% to the local sales tax, limited to use for low income housing. In listening to Mr. Beggs it is clear it was a complicated multi-step process to bring this motion to a vote–a process of which the vast majority of the citizenry of Spokane was unaware. 

Everyone on the Council and all of the public testimony to which I listened spoke to the need for the Council to promote affordable housing in the City of Spokane. So why was this so hard? In a word: taxes. Consider the framing. “The Housing Levy” first draws attention to the taxation but not the purpose of the taxation. The casual reader/taxpayer/citizen might be excused for wondering, from this title, if the intent of the legislation were to raise money for something by raising the tax on their own housing, rather than seeing the measure as a way of promoting affordable housing.

The next day in both the Spokesman’s paper and online versions the titles of the articles on the “Housing Levy” led with the words “sales tax” before any nod to the purpose of the ordinance. The message conveyed? Whoa! This is going to cost you something! Pay attention!

Buried in the fine print is the notation that a 0.1% sales tax increase will cost the average Spokane family between $16 and $25 per year. Will the citizens of Spokane rise up and vote the Council out of office for this heinous taxation? (After all, there is some adverse psychology in the fact that this bump of 0.1% will raise the sales tax to a conspicuous round number, 9%.) Sadly, that’s probably a worry for the council members. It is a worry for them in part because of the way “The Housing Levy” is covered in the media.

As the news coverage details, the Council amended the ordinance so that the tax part of it will not be imposed until April 1, 2020. In the meantime the City is instructed to search for other sources of $6M of annual funding. If no source is identified, then the tax bump is triggered automatically. (Aside: notice the different framing in the words “bump” and “hike”.) The amendment to delay the tax, according to Mr. Beggs (who cast the deciding vote for the amendment) was necessary to insure the whole measure’s final passage. (To listen to the meeting, it sounded as though the amendment was part of a last minute negotiation that took some members a little off guard.)

These days any increase in taxation for anything, no matter how worthy, is viewed warily. Taxpayers need to be convinced their money is going to be well spent. For at least the last half century the Republican propaganda machine has been been pushing the notion among the citizenry that all government is inefficient, suspect, corrupt, and wasteful. (Remember Grover Norquist and his “I want to shrink government until it can be drown in a bathtub.”) 

In this Republican anti-government narrative, any tax, regardless of size or purpose, is then framed as either a burden on the little guy (a “regressive” tax) or as creeping taxation wasted on funding nasty “big government”–or both. 

Michael Cathcart, the voice of Republicanism on the Council, and the lone vote against final passage of the amended ordinance, leaned on the anti-tax theme by making special reference to the burden he believes a sales tax adds to the little guy’s financial burdens in the pandemic [3:09:52 in the video]. Perhaps there’s another time for such a tax for such a worthy cause, he says, but not now as we face a possible “pile on” of taxes. (So when, Mr. Cathcard? How about a non-regressive tax to relieve the statewide burden on the little guy, like a graduated income tax?) After nixing a sales tax bump to help deal with the housing shortage, Mr. Cathcart argued for major changes in zoning and land use regulation–the standard Republican plea for unleashing the power of private developers in a much less regulated “free market.” 

From Adam Shank’s article in  the Spokesman on Tuesday, December 1 entitled “With reservation, Spokane City Council tentatively approves sales tax to fund affordable housing“*:

While council members agreed that more funding is much needed to address the city’s housing crisis, some struggled ahead of Monday’s vote with the idea of imposing a new tax in the midst of an economic downturn. Some specifically took issue with the notion of increasing the sales tax, calling it regressive and disproportionately burdensome for low-income people.

We are left with coverage that focuses on the tax–and not on the benefit to the community of having this steady revenue stream to support affordable housing. Our collective tax allergy drove the Council to postpone the collection of the tax by three months. The original January 1, 2021, start might have gotten then ball rolling in time for the effort to address some of the housing disaster we face from pandemic evictions.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

* In the paper version of the Spokesman the low front page article by Adam Shanks was entitled “Council will spend winter exploring alternatives to sales tax to fund housing”

The political intrigue and community outrage surrounding the November 5th firing of the Spokane Regional Health District’s Health officer, Dr. Bob Lutz, by the Board of Health continues as the Covid-19 pandemic grinds on. Shawn Vestal, columnist for the Spokesman Review penned a scathing column in the Sunday, November 29, paper: The health board hired a replacement, but the void left by Lutz’s ouster remains. (I pasted it in the P.P.S below–but I also recommend a subscription to the paper.)

The SRHD BOH, along with the SRHD Administrator, Amelia Clark, in their ouster of Dr. Lutz, lost legitimacy in their mission to “…protect, improve and promote the health and well-being of all people through evidence-based practices.” Dr. Lutz was well suited by education, lifelong interest, and prior service on the Board itself, whereas Dr. Velazquez offers eastern Washington bland generalities in what Mr. Vestal details as Velazquez’ “thankless new job.” Dr. Velazquz offers us the level of guidance and expertise one might expect of a corporate pathologist gamely willing to step in at the urging of Mr. French, a likely business acquaintance.

The SRHD Board of Health meets tomorrow (see P.S. below for details), but the motions to be considered at the meeting are likely to be only a sideshow. Mostly likely they will officially appoint the Health Officer interim replacement (Dr. Francisco Velazquez) and discuss (in a private Executive Session) the potential legal consequences of what they have done. With their politically motivated ouster of Dr. Lutz they have shown a spotlight on the fallacy of a Board of Health whose members lack expertise in the health, medical, or epidemiological mission they are supposed to manage and advise. 

The solution? Like the upcoming change in county governance, the state legislature has the power to “turn the big knobs” by modifying the details of the make up and function county and municipal government. As Mr. Vestal points out, “That’s where Rep. Marcus Riccelli’s proposal for the upcoming legislative session comes in. Riccelli is drafting a bill that would change the nature of health district boards dramatically – requiring that they have at least as many health professionals as political appointees.”

This issue needs to be kept alive in the public mind. We can help. Since at least 2016 the Spokesman, along with sponsorship from Numerica Credit Union has solicited nominations for ten “Difference Makers” in the Spokane Community whose stories are presented in the paper during the last days of December. There is a movement to nominate Dr. Bob Lutz as one of this year’s Difference Makers. Presenting Dr. Lutz’ story to the community is an important component of keeping the Board of Health’s political gamesmanship in the spotlight. A feature article that highlights Dr. Lutz’ selfless commitment to the mission of public health would help call out the political machinations of the BOH.

ACTION ITEM: Right now take just a few minutes to click on 2020 Difference Makers and help nominate Dr. Bob Lutz for this honor. He deserves it–and the community owes it to him. (Never mind the error in the form that asks for a “2019 Difference Maker”) Eloquence in filling out the short form is, I’m sure, not required. 

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

P.S. Tomorrow at 12:30PM, Thursday, December 3, the Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) Board of Health (BOH) holds its monthly meeting. (Watch here, if you wish, when the time comes.) This is the Board of Health that fired its Health Officer, Dr. Bob Lutz, in a four hour meeting just a month ago, amidst a storm of community protest. At that meeting, there was a shred of hope that the BOH might somehow correct its shameful action. City of Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs offered an amendment to the motion to appoint Dr. Velazquez as interim Health Officer as Dr. Lutz’ replacement. The amendment specified that the interim appointment would be brought up for reconsideration at the December 3 [tomorrow’s] meeting. With this amendment, Mr. Beggs, who voted against the firing of Dr. Lutz, succeeded in adding a tiny note of caution to County Commissioner Al French’s surprise offering of Dr. Velazquez, a man with whom few, if any, members of the BOH were familiar,.as interim Health Officer

The agenda for tomorrow’s meeting offers some interesting illumination: Action Item 6a, scheduled for 1PM, is the “Appointment of an SRHD Interim Health Officer.” The interim appointment of Dr. Velasques is likely to pass with minimal discussion–an illustration of the power of motion-making. Commissioner French, wise to ways of Boards, did his homework. He swooped into the November 5 meeting of a Board he had rarely attended with two prepared motions, one to fire Dr. Lutz and the other a surprise motion, presented to an exhausted Board, to appoint Dr. Velazquez as interim Health Officer. No one else on the Board having done the homework necessary to offer a replacement for Dr. Lutz, the appointment carried with only minor murmurs of caution. Dr. Velazquez essentially became the incumbent Health Officer in that moment. Incumbency is powerful.

The agenda for tomorrow’s meeting also offers a (supposedly) fifteen minute Executive Session out of the public eye: “Review of Qualifications of Applicant for Public Employment Pursuant to RCW §42.30.110(1)(g) and Litigation/Potential Litigation Pursuant to RCW §42.30.110(1)(i)“  By Washington State law the BOH can contemplate the potential legal consequences (including the cost) of the action to fire Dr. Lutz. It is likely we have not heard the end of this story.

P.P.S. Shawn Vestal’s November 29 column:
Dr. Francisco Velázquez – the hastily drafted interim health officer of the Spokane Regional Health District – showed up the day before Thanksgiving at his third public press conference, 25 days into the worst month of the pandemic and 16 days into his thankless new job.

At his first such appearance, at the district’s weekly Facebook Live event for the public on Nov. 13 – as local case numbers were reaching new peaks – he introduced himself, discussing his career at length and give a lot of kudos to the hard-working district team.

He didn’t talk specific cases or strategy.

At his second, Nov. 18, Velazquez focused almost entirely on a single metric: the fact that cases among the very oldest county residents had fallen since July. Good news!

At his third press conference Wednesday, right after we reached a new daily case peak of 499, Velazquez made a few exceedingly brief, exceedingly general remarks. He did not give a statistical picture of the current state of the pandemic in Eastern Washington. He did not provide information about local hotspots, the state of contact tracing or testing, or anything more detailed about what officials are seeing on the ground.

He did not – apart from some quick “we-all-know-this-stuff” mentions – drive a powerful message about masks and social distancing.

He very much emphasized people should continue to seek health care for non-COVID reasons if they need to, and reminded people that the governor’s “rollback” on the pandemic precautions would be expected to have an effect in the near future. He introduced two hospital executives who talked about hospital capacity.

He said we all have a lot to be thankful for this season.

“We can still have holidays,” he said. “We just have to plan them a little differently.”

You probably know the ways he means, and that’s good because he barely mentioned them.

In all, it was a genial, general, only glancingly informative appearance, in which Velazquez resembled a master of ceremonies, introducing the main acts and thanking everyone for their hard work.

Sadly, that’s been characteristic of the communications reality that has descended since the leaders of the health district rashly, irresponsibly and ineptly drove out Dr. Bob Lutz, a widely admired public health expert, because he was expressing views they didn’t like.

The result – at a moment of crucial importance – has been an unnecessary loss of one of the most vital leadership tools in any public health crisis: A reliable, consistent, specific source of information and expertise.

The district has continued to compile and release statistical information about the pandemic, almost entirely by press release. Many others have engaged with the press and the public in efforts to get out the word about the pandemic and best practices for fighting it. But the face of the pandemic fight is gone.

That’s what administrator Amelia Clark and the reckless politicians on the health board so casually trashed. Lutz was not a figurehead or cheerleader. He was deeply knowledgeable and had served as the district’s public face for months and months, steering our understanding of what was happening. He was before the public continually, providing details, answering questions and giving unequivocal guidance on health precautions.

On those grounds, he has simply not been replaced.

This is not meant as a knock on the district itself, whose epidemiologists, public health nurses and others have been doing valiant work. Neither is it meant as a knock on Velázquez himself, who by all accounts is a nice guy with a wide range of medical experience as a doctor and health care executive – though not, perhaps, a lot of experience specific to this role.

No, this is a knock on the health board and Clark, who could not have fashioned an uglier, less competent, more nakedly obvious political excommunication of Lutz. That they did so in a rushed fashion, seemingly without even a basic understanding of the law governing the hiring and firing of health officers, when there was no emergency and with no replacement plan, made it even worse.

There was simply no health rationale for doing what they did. None. The excuses from the political hit squad – who objected that Lutz wrote an op-ed column about racism, had marched in a mask at a Black Lives Matter rally and had contacted legislators about gun safety, among a raft of other petty and controlling complaints – were ludicrous.

It was a travesty. It was also nearly a month ago now, and we’ve had that time to get an even stronger sense of what we’re missing. It has only strengthened the sense that change is needed in the way the health district is run.

That’s where Rep. Marcus Riccelli’s proposal for the upcoming legislative session comes in. Riccelli is drafting a bill that would change the nature of health district boards dramatically – requiring that they have at least as many health professionals as political appointees.

Our board now has nine elected officials and three citizens representatives. None of the politicians are medical professionals. One of the citizen reps is a dental hygienist. Another is Jason Kinley, a naturopath who has shared conspiracy nonsense about the pandemic at a Matt Shea rally.

And he voted to keep Lutz!

It is impossible to imagine that a board with more health expertise would have done what this board did. We’re living with the consequences of that now.

Maybe when the next crisis rolls around – when fluoride or vaccinations find their way back into the public eye, say – we won’t have to.

“The Housing Levy” Ordinance will be addressed this evening at the Spokane City Council. Today I want to use this ordinance as a civics lesson for myself and my readers. The issue was flagged to me in a blanket email sent me by an interest group whose work I respect, FUSE Washington. I encourage you (after further reading) to register your comments on “The Housing Levy” with your City Council members this morning in advance of this afternoon’s and evening’s meeting. FUSE has set up an easy way to send an email which you can access here. Another good option is to go to the City Council Members page from where you can email individual members of the Council or offer a blanket comment to all of them (in the right hand column). My guess is that numbers of favorable comments are probably more important than eloquence or numbers of words.

Civics Lesson:

This evening in the course of their electronic meeting the City of Spokane City Council will consider ORD C35982, aka “The Housing Levy.” This is our local government at work. Marching and demonstrating is often necessary to draw attention to issues, but the process of working toward solutions for issues surfaces at meetings like this. Thanks to the wonders of TV and the internet you can watch, listen in, and even participate (in a limited way) at the November 30 Briefing Session at 3:30PM and/or the Legislative Session at 6:30PM. Click that link to watch from the comfort of your home some of the work your elected city officials actually do. 

On the City Council Agenda for November 30 ORD C35982 appears first on page 8, mid-page. This short intro is pretty dry and bland:

Imposing a sales and use tax for the construction, acquisition, and rehabilitation of attainable housing and for housing-related supportive services; and enacting a new chapter 07.08C of the Spokane Municipal Code. (Council Sponsor: Council Members Wilkerson, Stratton and
Burke) 

To read the details of ORD C35982 you have to scroll down to page 448 in the 735 page agenda (at least those are the page numbers in the pdf file). [Useful trick: CMD-F on my computer offers a window. Pasting or typing “ORD C35982” in that window shows there are three instances in which ORD C35982 appears in the whole 735 page document. Clicking takes you right there. Voila!] I encourage you to click on the agenda link (repeated here), skim a little and then navigate to pdf page 448 to look at the actual “Ordinance” (“a piece of legislation enacted by a municipal authority”). 

The summary of ORD C35982 on page 445 clarifies a lot:

The Washington state legislature has authorized, by passing HB 1590, cities and counties to impose an additional 0.1% sales and use tax, provided that the revenues from that tax must be spent on the construction, acquisition, and rehabilitation of affordable housing, and on housing-related supportive services. This ordinance imposes the sales and use tax, describes project funding priorities, sets a sunset date, and provides a framework for application review and project funding recommendations.

That is 1/10 of a penny on a dollar purchase made within the City of Spokane. That levy should raise $4,100,000 for local use to start to address the issue of affordable housing. Put another way, the levy is one dollar on a $1000 purchase, a collective tiny tithe for the good of the community. 

Anyone paying attention knows that housing in Spokane is really tight, downright unaffordable for many. This proposed ordinance is our local government working to provide some relief. ORD C35982 did not materialize in a vacuum. It builds on a law passed by the WA State Legislature and signed by the governor on March 31, 2020, HB 1590, “Allowing the local sales and use tax for affordable housing to be imposed by a councilmanic authority.” Take-home point: municipal and county government action is circumscribed by the state constitution and state law–one small example of “the rule of law” and the importance of understanding how all this works in civil society. The ability of the City of Spokane City Council to consider and pass ORD C35982 rests on someone’s idea, the drafting of the language of HB 1590, the efforts of our state legislators, the governor, the drafters of ORD C35982, and the City Council members who support it. Who knew?

It will be very, very interesting to track the news coverage of ORD C35982. If the City Council passes the ordinance this evening, will the Spokesman article about it be titled “City Council Imposes Yet Another Tax on Spokane” or “City Council Takes a Step to Address Affordable Housing”? That is, will the news coverage light up the anti-tax mind frame or the “let’s help out our fellow citizens” mind frame. We will see.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry