Republican plot to dissolve joint Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department collapses

A Repub­li­can scheme that sought to dis­solve Pierce Coun­ty’s joint health depart­ment arrange­ment with the City of Taco­ma col­lapsed in spec­tac­u­lar fash­ion ear­li­er this evening after errat­ic Coun­cilmem­ber Pam Roach (known for her “Who Moved My Flow­ers!?” speech) sided with sev­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­cilmem­bers and vot­ed against the pro­pos­al, which she had orig­i­nal­ly sponsored.

Repub­li­can Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Bruce Dammeier’s office was behind the scheme. Dammeier report­ed­ly want­ed to dis­solve the joint health depart­ment so that his admin­is­tra­tion could get the clock tick­ing on the cre­ation of a stand­alone depart­ment that his pro-sprawl admin­is­tra­tion would have full con­trol over.

The joint depart­ment dates back to 1972, when it was formed under an inter­local agree­ment between Pierce Coun­ty and Taco­ma, its largest con­stituent city.

With Democ­rats set to con­trol the major­i­ty on the Pierce Coun­ty Coun­cil for the first time in eons, Dammeier need­ed Repub­li­cans to sign off on his scheme, fast.

Dammeier’s plot hit a huge snag yes­ter­day when Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee used the author­i­ty giv­en to him by the Revised Code of Wash­ing­ton (RCW) to issue an emer­gency procla­ma­tion bar­ring pub­lic health depart­ments like Taco­ma’s and Pierce Coun­ty’s from being dis­solved dur­ing the cur­rent pandemic.

This move irked Roach, who sug­gest­ed she was lean­ing towards vot­ing against Dammeier but might vote yes any­way to spite Inslee.

How­ev­er, in the end, after impas­sioned pub­lic tes­ti­mo­ny against the scheme, Roach opt­ed to vote against the pro­pos­al, there­by killing it.

“Pub­lic input is a high­er order than one-man one-vote. It was the right thing to do,” Roach told The News Tri­bune of Taco­ma after the vote took place.

Roach’s nay vote makes the ques­tion of whether Pierce Coun­ty could have suc­cess­ful­ly evad­ed Inslee’s procla­ma­tion moot. (Before the final vote, Repub­li­cans had amend­ed the draft leg­is­la­tion to attempt to skate around the procla­ma­tion by start­ing the dis­so­lu­tion process after its expiration.)

The spec­tac­u­lar col­lapse of Dammeier’s scheme means that Taco­ma-Pierce Coun­ty Pub­lic Health is prob­a­bly safe for the fore­see­able future.

Pri­or to the vote, pub­lic health lead­ers had loud­ly protest­ed Dammeier’s scheme, as had a large num­ber of Pierce Coun­ty residents.

“The time­line is so dat­ed that it doesn’t allow any­body to par­tic­i­pate in con­ver­sa­tion and find out what’s going on com­mu­ni­ty staff at the health depart­ment. Every­body is frus­trat­ed and feel blind­sided,” Board of Health Chair and Taco­ma Coun­cil mem­ber Cather­ine Ushk told The News Tri­bune.

“This would dis­man­tle the inde­pen­dence of our health depart­ment. Chang­ing it right now, it’s not just dras­tic, I think it’s irresponsible.”

We agree, and we’re thrilled this ill-con­ceived scheme has crashed and burned. The last thing Pierce Coun­ty need­ed was for its coop­er­a­tive­ly man­aged pub­lic health agency to be dis­man­tled and placed under the con­trol of Dammeier and his untrust­wor­thy asso­ciates, includ­ing the recent­ly defeat­ed Steve O’Ban.

The out­come of this vote is a big vic­to­ry for pub­lic health and safe­ty in Wash­ing­ton’s sec­ond largest coun­ty, one we can all celebrate.

Rarely do we get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to thank or con­grat­u­late Pam Roach, who is one of Tim Eyman’s pals, but today, Roach has earned our thanks for belat­ed­ly slam­ming the brakes on this ter­ri­ble idea. Thanks, Pam!