The sooner the Tri-Cities has a new health board, the better. Diversity is clearly needed

Ideally, new members of the Benton Franklin Health District Board would have been selected by now.

After all, the state deadline to expand and diversify the board is set for Friday, July 1.

But the process is still ongoing in the Tri-Cities — as it is in other communities throughout Washington state, according to District Administrator Jason Zaccharia.

He told the Tri-City Herald there are several health districts needing more time to complete the process — which is required by a 2021 state law — and that the important thing is “to do it right.”

We agree that care is certainly needed. And adding this tremendous undertaking to overly-burdened health district officials is a huge, time-consuming task.

But we’d also suggest that the sooner a new health district board is put in place, the better. More voices are desperately needed.

The new law requires health boards to have an equal number of non-elected and elected officials in order to take the politics out of managing a community’s health care needs. The resistance to mask mandates and the bullying of health officials helped launch this much-needed change.

Currently, the board is made up of the three commissioners from Benton County and the three commissioners from Franklin County. While all six belong to the Republican Party, it is clear there is discord in the group, and adding non-elected members to the board could help diffuse the tension.

At the very least, the public hopefully would be assured that a wider variety of perspectives is represented on this critical, community panel.

The most recent board meeting is a good example of why this is important.

Of all the health-related issues that need the board’s attention, a ridiculous amount of time was devoted to whether the health district’s social media posts this June should mark LGBTQ+ Pride Month.

Zaccharia brought the issue up because two years ago the Franklin County Commission directed him to remove a LBGTQ+ Pride Month post from the health district’s Facebook page.

Last year the health district didn’t touch the issue, and Zaccharia said that also was a controversial decision. Health officials received phone calls from people saying it was the health district’s job to provide the information.

So this time, Zaccharia asked for permission.

He didn’t get it, even though the proposed posts were educational in nature, and relied on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the American Psychological Association. The plan was to publish two statements on Facebook and one on Instagram.

But three of the four commissioners present at the meeting decided against the posts. They were Benton County Commissioner Will McKay and Franklin County commissioners Clint Didier and Rocky Mullen.

While Franklin County Commissioner Brad Peck was unhappy with the 2020 Pride Month post, he warned that the district should publish posts equitably for everyone or not at all or it could face legal action.

“This is not about advancing a lifestyle,” Peck said. “It is simply about education and information that there are members of an acknowledged group that according to a national association have these challenges.”

The first proposed Facebook post quoted the CDC, saying “34% of LGBTQ+ students were bullied on school property and 28% bullied electronically.”

The second, also quoting the CDC, said “10% of LGBTQ+ Youth were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property.”

The proposed Instagram post had three pages, starting with a quote from the American Psychological Association that said “stress and stigma of being a sexual orientation or gender identity minority can increase development risks for LGBTQ+ children and youth.”

Didier questioned why Pride Month should be acknowledged or promoted, and McKay thought the rainbow-colored stripes in the corner of the posts went beyond stating factual information.

The point is that different groups have different health needs. Some may be ethnic or racial; some may be because of military service or working at Hanford. A substantial share of the health district residents are LGBTQ+. Should they be ignored? We don’t think so.

If our health board was more diverse, perhaps a different decision on the LGBTQ+ posts would have been reached — or perhaps not.

But at least the decision could have been made with a wider variety of views.

And the LGBTQ controversy is another example of why there should be broader representation on our health boards.

Again, the sooner that happens in Benton and Franklin counties, the better.