The Spokane Board of Health will look different in the New Year, and Thursday is the deadline for applications for a seat

Now, if you want to be represented at the local health department, since community members are a mandatory part of its makeup, Thursday is the last day you can apply for a seat.

It is the deadline for parishioners to apply for a two-year term on the Spokane Regional Health District Board of Health.

Spokane County’s commissioners have decided to change the composition of the health committee before the deadline for a new law requiring community representation equal to the number of elected officials on the board.

Last week the Spokane Board of Health voted to keep Commissioner Mary Kuney in her role as interim president of the board while forming the rest of the board, ideally before January 1.

Current board members serving as community representatives, Jason Kinley and Andrea Frostad, have been invited to reapply.

The state law stipulates that from July 2022 at least three community members with different backgrounds sit in the health department.

The three seats are:

• Public Health Representative or Medical Service Provider: This person must be employed or practice in public health or medicine and may be an epidemiologist, community health worker, hospital worker, current or retired doctor, nurse, dentist, naturopath, or pharmacist.
• Public Health Consumers: This person must have faced significant health inequalities and used programs such as the Complementary Nutritional Support Program and Funds for Women, Infants and Children (SNAP, WIC), home visits or treatment services. This person cannot be an elected civil servant or have fiduciary obligations to any health agency or facility.
• Community Organization Representative: an individual who works for a community organization, nonprofit, active or reserve armed forces, business community, or public health organization.

As of Tuesday, 13 people had applied since the commissioners announced in mid-November that they were looking for parishioners.

The district commissioners want to have the new board by December 31st. On Tuesday they will conduct interviews. The application deadline is Thursday evening, Kuney said at a meeting earlier this week. An application can be downloaded from the district’s website.

Millwood Mayor Kevin Freeman is the only current board member alongside the commissioners to join the new board in 2022. Last month, Spokane County’s commissioners voted to remove the Spokane and Spokane Valley city council from the board.

Freeman said he stayed on the board through the new year not because a small town representation would be retained, but because he is more of a placeholder position for an elected officer on the board.

Freeman, vice chairman of the Spokane Board of Health, led the draft budget this year, which he said was another reason he was asked to stay on the board. If a city official had been in his role, they probably would have stayed, he said.

If the number of district officers grows to five in 2023, the composition of the board will likely change again. Freeman said he’ll likely only be a placeholder for a year by then.

The American Indian Health Commission must appoint a nominee board member to the Spokane Board of Health by mid-2022. With Freeman on the board, there will be a balanced number of elected officials and parishioners on the board in the new year.

The commissioners said they wanted to set up a new board in time to start working on the 2023 budget early on

.

House Bill 1152, which prompted district officers to restructure their board of directors, instructs the Washington State Department of Health to establish rules governing the selection and appointment process for unelected members of a health committee.

This process is ongoing and these rules will not take effect until July 1, 2022.

The board of directors will be downsized from twelve to eight in the new year, much to the chagrin of MP Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, who introduced the legislation after the dismissal of Dr. Bob Lutz as Spokane County’s Health Officer. Riccelli and others criticized Lutz’s dismissal as a political move.