Dr. Terry Block, appointed in January to fill a vacancy on the Public Hospital District No. 1 Board of Commissioners, is facing two opponents in the Aug. 4 primary election to retain his seat.
The two candidates are Savannah Clifford-Visker of Renton, a Liberty High School graduate and an early learning teacher in the Renton School District, and Lawton Montgomery of Kent, a captain with the Kent Fire Department Regional Fire Authority with 27 years of firefighting experience.
The top-two finishers will advance to the general election on Nov. 3 for the board’s at-large Position 4. It’s the only hospital district commission race on the primary ballot.
Block of Bellevue was appointed to the board after Dr. Aaron Heide was removed from office because of unexcused absences in excess of 60 days. Heide now heads the Center for Neurovascular Care at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nev.
Block, a cardiologist, practiced at Valley Medical Center for more than 30 years. He served a three-year term as the hospital’s chief medical officer and was president of the physician-owned Southlake Clinic before he retired on Jan. 1.
Issues in the race include Valley CEOs Rich Roodman’s salary and the strategic alliance with UW Medicine, which Clifford-Visker and Montgomery argue has placed control of Valley Medical Center in the hands of an un-elected board.
The state Supreme Court affirmed the legality of the strategic alliance when it declined to review a state appeal’s court ruling that the alliance is legal.
The alliance, Block said, has “already been litigated at hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs to taxpayers and the Supreme Court has decided. It’s over,” he said.
The 13-member Board of Trustees, which includes the five district commissioners, oversees Valley Medical operations, while the district commissioners oversee specifically hospital district taxes and Valley’s buildings and property.
Block supports the strategic alliance but he said if he had been on the commission when the agreement was approved in 2011, he would have driven “a harder bargain” with UW Medicine.
Roodman is overpaid, he said, but that’s true of most chief executive officers. Block, along with fellow district commissioner Dr. Paul Joos, abstained in May from an otherwise unanimous trustee vote to extend Roodman’s contract for two years and freeze his salary.
Block abstained because as a recent appointee he didn’t want to get in the middle of an ongoing controversy. Had he been an elected board member, he said he would have voted to extend Roodman’s contract but with a reduced salary.
“I think he’s a very good CEO,” Block said. “I think he’s made his mistakes, which I’ll bet I’ve told him about more that anybody in the past.” Roodman “has grown” Valley and “I think he does care about the quality of the medical center,” Block said.
One reason Block decided to seek a commission seat is to participate in selecting Roodman’s successor, which should occur during the six-year term that’s on the ballot.
If she’s elected, Clifford-Visker wrote in the voters’ pamphlet she would support replacing Roodman and reducing the salaries of other administrators and use the savings to hire more nurses. This is her first run for elective office.
Montgomery, in his statement in the voters pamphlet, wrote that the strategic alliance was Roodman’s “scheme” to keep control of the commission, after two commissioners who supported him were defeated, by giving control of Valley to the unelected trustees.
Block said the issues to discuss in this year’s election are “how is Valley Medical Center going to provide the most access to care within reason. We can’t go broke doing it.”
Clifford-Visker said Valley Medical is currently facing “a number of challenges.”
“Our nurses are being pushed too hard since we do not have enough nurses working in the hospital,” she said.
Valley’s nurses and other workers recently staged informational picketing and a rally outside the hospital to bring attention to their concerns about contract issues, including staffing and benefits.
Block said “the hospital has to find a way to meet the nurses halfway,” although he said he wasn’t necessarily using the word “halfway” literally.
ABOUT THE CANDIDATES
Dr. Terry Block earned his medical degree at Ohio State University and completed his residency at University of Michigan Medical Center and Ohio State University Hospitals. He had a private practice in Burien, before joining Southlake Clinic in 1982. He is married with three children and three grandchildren.
Savannah Clifford-Visker is a 2007 graduate of Liberty High School; she earned an AA degree at Green River Community College in 2009 and her bachelors degree from Central Washington University in Ellensburg. She has served as a volunteer at Valley. She and her husband have a son; she’s taking a year’s maternity leave from teaching.
Lawton Montgomery is a graduate of Spanaway High School and Highline Community College. He attended the Washington State Patrol Fire Academy and the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md., and is an instructor for the Washington State Patrol Fire Academy.
