Whichever side you’re on, it’s hard to deny health district meeting was political

All politics are local. So said Tip O’Neill, former speaker of the House. But does everything local have to get so political?

Of course, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But during election season, it sure seems that way.

Take last week’s special meeting of the Cambria Community Healthcare District, for example.

Mary Ann Meyer made a point of declaring that the selection of an appointee to fill a vacancy on the board was “not political,” but it sure seemed as though it was.

Two candidates — retired Pasadena Fire Department employee Jerry Wood and registered dietitian Laurie Mileur — were up for the position left vacant by the death of trustee Michael McLaughlin.

Each made a case to the four sitting trustees for appointment to the board during a special meeting Wednesday, Sept. 21, at the Old Cambria Grammar School.

Twelve members of the public spoke out explicitly urging the board to appoint Mileur, including Nancy McLaughlin, widow of the trustee whose seat was being filled. No speaker urged Wood’s appointment, although a couple said he, too, was a strong candidate.

Indeed, no one had anything negative to say about Wood, who has a history of volunteerism and local activism.

But Wood doesn’t have a background in health care, while Mileur has spent 37 years in the field. And this is, after all, the Cambria Community Healthcare District board. Wouldn’t a background in health care be a good thing?

Apparently not — at least according to the board majority that bypassed Mileur for the position in favor of Wood on a 3-1 vote. Barbara Bronson Gray was the lone dissenter.

It might make sense if there were some concerns about Mileur’s character, background or competence, but no such concerns were raised by any of the trustees.

In fact, the main concern they seemed raised was that Mileur had too much medical background.

That’s right. Too much.

Trustee Bob Putney’s argument was that Mileur would somehow be less able to relate to the majority of district residents.

Putney argued that Wood was the best choice for the seat because he is “the person like most of the populace we serve, that doesn’t know all the ins and outs and doesn’t come with the encyclopedia of answers.”

But who better to communicate the ins and outs of health care to the community than someone who understands them? Would you rather receive a diagnosis from your doctor or your next-door neighbor?

Another question: Is the implication somehow that Mileur’s background as a health care provider makes it somehow impossible for her to understand what it’s like to be a health care recipient? If so, that makes zero sense. We all rely on health services at some point. Jerry Wood. Laurie Mileur. All of us.

To put Putney’s argument in perspective, let’s draw an analogy: Imagine the New York Yankees decided to hire a new manager. But instead of looking for someone with big league experience, the team owners decide to send someone up into the stands and come back with the best representative of the team’s fan base he can find.

Does that really make any sense?

Here’s something that makes even less sense: During the meeting, board members stressed that finances are a continuing challenge for the district. Wood even said it would be his top priority. But despite this, the board bypassed Mileur, who has a background in grant writing, in favor of Wood, who acknowledged that he doesn’t.

None of this made members of the audience — most of whom had come to support Mileur’s candidacy — too happy.

I don’t blame Nancy McLaughlin for walking out, especially when Putney invoked her late husband’s nonmedical background as a rationale for his support of Wood. (Nancy McLaughlin had made it clear in her comments that her husband would have backed Mileur; citing him as a reason for supporting Wood seemed insensitive to these ears.)

Other members of the audience, however, don’t get a pass for interrupting Wood and board members repeatedly. It got so bad that former county Supervisor Shirley Bianchi (who supported Mileur and is running for a seat on the board) stood up at one point and told them to “cool it.”

That said, it was equally inappropriate for board President Kristi Jenkins to respond to criticism from the audience after the vote by saying, “I don’t want to represent you people.”

Jenkins came into the meeting as a supporter of Wood, acknowledging in the meeting that she was “running with Jerry Wood” in the upcoming election.

Yes, Wood is still running for a seat on the board to which he was just appointed. He can’t hold two seats simultaneously, so if he wins the election, district Administrator Bob Sayers says, he’ll vacate the appointed seat once he takes the oath of office. The board (including Wood) could then appoint someone else to fill the new vacancy, Sayers said, or it could either defer to the Board of Supervisors or an election.

Was it appropriate for Jenkins to vote on the vacancy at all when she is “running with Jerry Wood” in the upcoming election?

Was it appropriate for the board to appoint a candidate who was already running for a board seat in the upcoming election? Did that, in some sense, circumvent the will of the voters? Readers can answer these questions for themselves.

But there’s one question to which the answer should be painfully obvious: Was this political? Whichever side you’re on, and whichever candidate you support, it’s hard to imagine any other answer than a resounding yes.

This story was originally published September 28, 2016 at 9:56 AM with the headline "Whichever side you’re on, it’s hard to deny health district meeting was political."