Letters to the Editor

To the editor,

As of March 1, 2022, the Columbia County Public Health Department has a new director. This director was chosen by the county commissioners over a qualified individual who had been working for the department for 3.5 years and would have loved to apply, but was not made aware while she was on maternity leave that the position was open. Standard procedure for hiring at the department of health is for the board of health to approve both a job description and an advertisement for the position. Once the board approves these things, they are given to the county commissioners to approve and start the hiring process. This time around, there was never a motion, resolution, or mention of approving a job description or advertisement at all. The commissioners did not ask for any input from public health officials or our public health officer, Dr. Lewis Neace, before hiring the new director.

All of this is concerning, even before knowing that the person hired for this position was featured in a national news article first published in the Washington Post on November 6, 2021 entitled, “The Vaccine Countdown” by Eli Saslow. The article recounts the new director’s decision to leave her job at Columbia County Health System rather than comply with WA state’s health-care worker vaccine mandate. Yes, you read that right. The head of our public health department, who is in charge of informing the public of current health guidelines and overseeing vaccine administrations, left her job at CCHS rather than follow the healthcare guidelines put forth by medical experts. This does not instill confidence regarding the safety of the community if another public health crisis were to occur.

According to the county, you don’t have to be vaccinated in order to be hired, but specific grants that are held at public health require anyone who may come into contact with WIC clients be vaccinated. Due to the size of our public health office, everyone who works there has not just the potential, but the probability of coming into contact with those individuals.

The lack of transparency during this process is unsettling. With the commissioners’ decision to go about hiring in this way, we’ve lost another good public employee who would have liked the opportunity to apply for this job. Please don’t let this mismanagement of human resources by the Columbia County Commissioners go unnoticed.

Shellie McLeod

Dayton, Wash.

To the editor,

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell let the unbridled monster out of the barn and may never get him back in.

Early in Barack Obama’s presidency, McConnell announced his most important achievement would be to make Obama a one-term president. Ever since, McConnell has opposed anything Obama and Democrats have introduced, even if originally Republican-proposed (Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health plan predating Obamacare). This includes blocking legislation Obama and subsequent Democrats continually put forward to rescue the lower- and middle-income working classes, many of whom have been unjustly left behind.

These angry, marginalized workers were fertile ground for the lies, hate and bigotry of Donald Trump; consequently, many were drawn to him, even though he’s always favored the rich, especially with his tax cuts. Belatedly, McConnell has shown signs of realizing his actions have created a monster.

The first major sign that McConnell realized his mistakes, though lacking the integrity to right them, was his strong criticism of Trump during impeachment proceedings following the January 6, 2021 insurrection. This provided McConnell, with his influence on Republican senators, an opportunity to end the monster’s political life, but McConnell lacked the courage to vote accordingly for conviction. More recently, McConnell criticized the Republican National Committee’s censure of Republican US Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and its characterization of the Trump-inspired January 6 insurrection as “legitimate political discourse”.

But much damage has already been done, and McConnell and Republican cowardice precludes any chance of getting the monster back into the barn.

Norm Luther

Spokane, Wash.