FORKS — Hospital District 1 candidate Sarah Huling assured voters she is resigning her job at Forks Community Hospital whether she wins the election or not.
Huling, who is running against appointed office-holder Linda Offutt for Position 5 on the Forks Community Hospital board, said she has resigned from her position in diagnostic imaging effective Jan. 2.
State RCW 70.44.040 includes in its provisions that hospital employees cannot serve that hospital’s board of commissioners.
A question about that was posed to Huling.
“I’ve already given my notice to the hospital regardless of the election results,” Hulling said.
“My husband and I are just in this time of our lives with kids, and his business is able to bear the burden of our financial stuff. I was already going in that direction, so I gave the hospital notice that, as of Jan. 2, they could replace me,” Huling said.
Still, she said she would like to see the law changed.
“I’ve contacted our legislative representative because I would have to go through the Legislature to amend the RCW that says you cannot be a board member if you are an employee,” Huling said.
“But since we have shifted from a three-member to a five-member board and we also do have an option to go to a seven-member board, I think it would make sense to slot one of those positions for an employee,” she continued.
“I think it’s important to have a voice from the front line.”
Huling said she would like to see the board membership expanded, saying, for instance, that she didn’t want to run against Offutt, whom she thinks is a good commissioner.
Offutt said she was not opposed to the idea of expanding the board, but “I think whatever the individual brings to the table is what’s important, not whether they are an employee or not.
“If we went to a seven-member board, possibly that would be good, but I really would like to see more of the outside representation.”
Offutt later said: “As you know, it’s challenging to get people to step up to fill a position, My only concern is, if we went to a seven-member board, would we get the people that actually would want to do that?
“We’re good at five members at the moment — I’m not opposed to seven — but I would really like to see two really substantial, high-level persons step up,” Offutt said.
Both candidates said they want to keep health care local.
Both candidates also spoke about how to attract more doctors and other trained professionals to the area.
Huling said she is an advocate of “growing our own,” while Offutt said the hospital now goes to all job fairs for high schools and Peninsula College and has clinical rotations offered through 10 universities and colleges.
Offutt, who moved to Forks in 2007, is the retired manager of the Forks Timber Museum and owner of JOLIN Enterprises Janitorial Maintenance. Her prior experience includes acting as the regional manager of Ticketron in California and managing the now-sworn departments of the Claremont, Calif., Police Department.
Huling has worked in medical imaging on the Olympic Peninsula since 2004.
Since 2017, she has served as a National Rural Health Association Fellow. She earned an MBA in rural health care in 2019.
A local voters’ pamphlet can be found at clallam.net/auditor/Elections. A statewide voters’ guide is at www.sos.wa.gov/elections.
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Reporter Ken Park can be reached at kpark@peninsuladailynews.com.
