Thank you for your comments, Dr.

Lau

For senior employees & those in key positions working with Valley it must be very
difficult to be impartial in the highly charged and overly politicized atmosphere
that has been built at Valley. The “Make Rich Look Good” theme has pervaded
top Administration at Valley for many years and the pressure to toe the line must
be immense for anyone in senior management.

The unfounded attacks outlined in your letter mirror what the majority of this
Commission has stated in attacking Commissioner Heide and myself, and again it
seems a concerted and coordinated effort by the Administration against those
elected officials who are trying to provide more active oversight of that
Administration.

It is very disappointing and extremely concerning how politicized the Senior

Administration of Valley Medical Center has become. Almost every
Administrator around this table contributed cash and effort to the former
Commissioner’s campaign that Dr. Heide challenged & beat last November. Dr.
Heide won despite the incumbent’s seven to one fundraising advantage, with
pretty much all of the incumbent’s funds coming from groups that had a direct
financial interest and were doing business with Valley Medical - including this top
Administrative staff here.

It is probably not coincidence that Valley’s Administration is so active in opposing

the reformist Commissioners as it is the Commissioners that approve the very
generous bonus programs for top Administration and have made Mr. Roodman by
far the highest paid public employee in Washington State, paying him a multiple
over what the Administrator makes at the much larger Harborview a few miles
away.

What has happened with the Commission is almost a definition of a “captive

organization” where the majority of the Commission will approve anything that is
asked of it by the staff, with our without analysis being presented to support
those policy decisions.
The top Administration has a huge financial incentive to control what happens on
this Commission. While it may be in the Administration’s best interests, your
control of the Commission is not in the taxpayer’s best interests. Nor is the
continued effort to silence dissent and discussion by minority Commissioners.

The “Group Think” which has pervaded Valley’s Commission for many years isn’t
helpful to the community or the institution. Case in point - you unanimously and
enthusiastically supported the attempt to annex much of SE King County in the
“emergency election” of 2006. While Administration might have thought it was a
brilliant idea it failed with over a 94% “no” vote. If you’d actually had discussion
and debate and weren’t just talking to yourselves you probably would have
realized what seems a great idea in this room doesn’t necessarily mean it is a
great idea in reality.

Equally, you can probably get a majority of this Commission to condemn either
Commissioner Heide or myself – on almost any trumped up charge – but such a
condemnation from a completely captive body means nothing in reality. It will
likely just garner more attention about how out-of-touch Valley’s Commission
majority is with the wider world in trying to minimize oversight and transparency.

As to the specific charge in your letter that I hadn’t prepared for the decision and
debate on the Covington Free Standing Emergency Department (FSED), I’d
encourage you to read my letter carefully again, I stand by it and reiterate that a
huge problem with this decision is that there was virtually no information
provided to the Commission. This isn’t an isolated instance. I’ve complained
loudly many times that generally the Commission doesn’t even get policy memos
on issues we are supposed to be deciding about. Almost any other public body
wouldn’t stand for this – but it is business as usual in this Commission.

On the FSED we hadn’t gotten a single document on this major $25 million
decision until days before there was a final vote. We only got that document
because I demanded that we have some analysis. What we got was riddled with
errors and hadn’t even done the most basic of comparisons – and still it didn’t
matter. The majority of the Commission would have approved the FSED with no
analysis at all and certainly didn’t want to bother with a public hearing or in even
having a meeting with the City of Kent about alternatives.

It is worrisome in the extreme that this is seen as fine and business as usual in a
local government and that because I am challenging this practice that you are
saying there should be a vote of no confidence in me.

Again, my job as a Commissioner is not to approve blindly what the

Administration requests, it is to provide oversight – and when information to
provide that oversight isn’t provided it is my duty to speak out about this.

What’s going on here is a mockery of public policy in a public institution.

As Doctors, I presume you practice “Evidence Based Medicine” – and want to

analyze many factors before moving to a treatment. I want the Commission to be
able to get accurate, professional and pertinent information prior to our having to
make policy decisions that commit taxpayer funds to long term projects. That
isn’t happening today and that is why I am loudly asking for it to be changed.

Working for better public policy and real oversight is what our job as a
Commissioner is supposed to be doing. It is highly disappointing if your group
thinks these efforts deserve condemnation instead of support.

Anthony Hemstad

Commissioner King County Public Hospital District #1 (Valley Medical Center)