Health officer contract sparks fireworks

The Flathead County Board of Health unanimously approved Health Officer Joe Russell’s new three-year contract Thursday — but only after some heated debate about the conduct of Russell’s employment evaluation.

Russell, who has worked for the county more than 20 years, declined to request that the meeting be closed during the discussion prior to contract approval. He said after the meeting he wasn’t aware that issues discussed earlier in closed sessions would come up again.

Board members Dr. Wayne Miller and county Commissioner Pam Holmquist said the board’s personnel committee failed to look into a list of concerns about Russell submitted by Flathead County Administrative Officer Mike Pence and Human Resources Director Raeann Campbell.

Personnel committee member Duane Larson said he did consider the list of issues.

“I didn’t find any merit in any of them,” he said.

The list was not made public but health board member Dr. David Myerowitz referred to one about a lack of sensitivity in Russell’s interactions with other people. He made clear his impression of the list.

“They presented an extremely biased and emotional piece of information,” Myerowitz said.

Miller countered that the committee should have investigated issues raised by senior county officials since Russell is a county employee. But he made clear during the meeting and afterward that none of the issues were serious enough to keep him from approving Russell’s contract.

Larson took personal offense at the criticism.

“You’re questioning our integrity,” he said. “We did our job. We did it honestly.”

Committee members include board members Bill Burg and Dr. Glen Aasheim. Holmquist thanked the committee for doing the evaluation and acknowledged that the documentation of the issues submitted by Pence and Campbell “was very poorly done.”

She said that she had wanted the board to meet with Pence and was very disappointed when board members opted not to meet. Miller said the board had “every opportunity to meet” with Pence and Campbell.

Holmquist said she spent a lot of time looking into the complaints.

“Several agencies and individuals work with the health department and Joe. There are some things that have gone on that are not proper,” she said. “I’m having a tough time with this [contract] decision.” When asked for specifics following the meeting, Holmquist said she had no comment.

Myerowitz said the health board “runs pretty darn well.” He said that most of the issues brought to the board stem from personal interactions, adding the health officer has to “step on people’s feet”  to get things done.

“We were unimpressed with the laundry list of accusations,” he said.

He objected to what he called Holmquist’s “innuendoes” and said as a member of the board, she was allowed to bring documentation of flaws in Russell’s behavior. She responded that some were “very troubling” to her.

Russell said that most of the issues included in the submittal had been resolved.

“These allegations don’t exist — they’ve been resolved,” he said. “If you want to dredge them up to assassinate my character, go ahead.”

Russell said Miller had told him after an earlier discussion of the list that he had done a good job responding to the concerns.

“He said the main issue is my arrogance,” Russell said. “You don’t run a health department without having a fairly confident demeanor.”

He said people may say that some of his traits need to be softened, but that takes nothing away from what has been accomplished at the Health Department.

Following Russell’s comments, the board voted unanimously to approve the new three-year contract without a county-requested modification to allow the county administration to perform Russell’s evaluations.

Holmquist said she had a difficult time deciding to support the contract and asked Russell to show her by his performance that the problem areas were resolved.