Proposed health department takeover might be more about septic tanks than COVID response
On Tuesday morning dozens of local residents gathered outside the County-City Building for a rally decrying the Pierce County Council’s attempted fast-track takeover of the health department.
The collection of rain-soaked protesters and speakers included doctors, nurses and other local medical professionals — all of them justifiably wary of the potential public health impact that handing control of the health department over to the County Council and County Executive might have.
Amid a pandemic, the loud calls for caution — and some semblance of a public process — were no surprise. In the days since Republicans on the County Council unveiled the controversial ordinance — and made clear their intentions to vote on it next week — the county’s public health response to COVID-19 has taken center stage.
For many, including this columnist, the first questions were obvious. Is the move a conservative response to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s handling of the coronavirus, right before the council turns blue for the first time in nearly 20 years? And, if so, what exactly is the perceived problem Council Republicans are trying to fix?
As it turns out, there’s another side of this story that has so far largely flown under the radar.
On the same day that angry residents rallied outside the County-City Building, it became increasingly clear that the council’s 11th hour maneuver isn’t about specific qualms with Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s pandemic response as much as it’s about permits, development and the desire of some Council Republicans to make building easier.
Currently, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department is responsible for issuing permits for things like on-site septic systems, water systems, wells and contamination cleanup projects. The county, meanwhile, issues building and land-use permits.
By phone, Republican County Council Chairman Doug Richardson acknowledged that “streamlining” the permitting process for development in rural parts of the county played a “significant” role in his support of the ordinance.
“I think this is in the best interest of the county, and that county includes incorporated and unincorporated areas,” Richardson said when asked directly about how concerns over alleged red tape and bureaucracy have influenced his views on the proposed takeover.
“I think it provides for better collaboration and coordination with our planning and public works department, because that’s where you go, for example, in unincorporated county if you want a permit to build something,” Richardson said. “You can’t get a building permit until you get a permit to allow you to drill a well, and all of those things take time.”
Richardson said that these concerns — coupled with his belief that the county is already involved in many aspects of public health and can more efficiently run the local health department and serve its citizens — provides ample justification for both the move and the two-week timeline for approval that now seems all but certain.
Asked specifically about the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s response to COVID-19, like anyone, Richardson said he has occasionally disagreed with some of the ways the current health department has responded to the pandemic. As a grandparent, for example, he mentioned a seeming lack of communication between the department and local private schools attempting to reopen.
“But that’s not what’s driving me,” Richardson reiterated.
While this statement might fly in the face of the narrative that has quickly developed — which has been fostered, at least in part, by the relative silence of Council Republicans outside of Pam Roach and the fact that public health measures across the country have increasingly come under attack from conservatives angered by the COVID-19 response — a desire to make development easier isn’t out of character for Council Republicans.
Richardson said he has long favored county control of the permitting process, arguing that it would be faster, easier and more efficient for developers and builders, particularly in rural, unincorporated areas.
Similarly, Republican Dave Morell — a commercial subcontractor by trade who hasn’t responded to The News Tribune or been made available for comment — alluded to such concerns on Twitter late last week.
“Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department is responsible for other services such as permits for septic systems, water wells, and permitting of food services are also areas that a more streamlined service tied to the land use permitting would benefit the citizens of Pierce County,” Morell said in one of a series of tweets sent defending the ordinance.
Still — even if both lawmakers have been consistent in their support for easing the permitting process — the rationale for the move raises important questions of its own.
For starters, it’s fair to ask who is best served by making building easier in rural and unincorporated parts of Pierce County, the region or the tract-housing developers who stand to profit from it?
It’s also natural to wonder how much campaign contributions and the significant power of development advocacy groups might be influencing Republican support of the health department takeover, particularly in Richardson’s case, given his days left in power and the impending Democratic majority set to take over in January.
Public Disclosure Commission filings show that developers, builders and others who stand to benefit from the move — including the political action committee that represents the Master Builders Association of Pierce County, the Washington Association of Realtors and an LLC tied to the 4,700-acre Tehaleh community south of Bonney Lake — were all among Richardson’s top donors when he last ran for County Council in 2016.
The same was true for Morell during his 2018 bid for council.
Richardson responded with an “emphatic no” when asked whether the campaign donations he’s received from developers and local home builders — some of which carried over during his recent bid for Pierce County sheriff — have influenced his support of the county’s move to seize control of the health department.
“I never take campaign contributions from anyone with an expectation,” Richardson said. “That’s not how I roll.”
With a final vote on the ordinance closing in, Richardson told The News Tribune he bristles at the suggestion that the council is “abolishing” the health department and firmly believes the move will allow important public health work to continue while better serving constituents.
Richardson also believes there will be plenty of time to work out the details of the transition in the coming months.
Of course, how much — if any — of this the people of Pierce County believe remains to be seen.
During a pandemic, is making development in rural and unincorporated Pierce County easier a better reason for rushing to disband the health department as we’ve known it for the last 50 years?
Or, is it an even more dubious one?
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 1:36 PM.
