05/20/2025
This is our final day to cast our votes about the future of healthcare on the coast. Do we keep control or sell it off to Wall Street. Mail in your ballots, Uno, Saada, Stevens Alonzo.
As Coos County voters prepare to cast their ballots in tomorrow’s special election, a series of recent events surrounding Bay Area Hospital demand not just attention but alarm. One of our community’s most vital institutions is being quietly reshaped through what appears to be some bending of the rules.
Evidence has emerged suggesting that hospital leadership, or those closely aligned with it, may be interfering with the democratic process in ways that should concern every voter, regardless of party or ideology.
Let’s start with what was caught on camera. On the evening of May 15, a uniformed Bay Area Hospital security officer was recorded removing political lawn signs supporting candidates Brandon Saada and John Uno. These signs were not illegally placed. They stood on private property across Thompson Road from the hospital campus, well within the boundaries of lawful expression under city code. A trail camera, installed after repeated disappearances, captured the officer in the act, clearly wearing the insignia of Bay Area Hospital.
According to a formal complaint filed by Dr. Charles Hurbis, this action appears to violate Oregon law. ORS 260.432 prohibits public employees from engaging in political activity while on duty or under the direction of their employer. If the officer was instructed to remove the signs, as the complaint suggests, the violation isn’t just administrative, it’s ethical. It signals that institutional power may have been used to suppress opposition in an active election.
At the same time, hospital leadership has been quietly pursuing a potential partnership or acquisition deal with Quorum Health, a Tennessee-based company owned by private equity. Quorum has a well-documented history of slashing services, cutting staff, and gutting rural hospitals for profit. A majority vote by the board could greenlight such a deal, potentially without meaningful public input. That makes the current election not just a contest for oversight, but a referendum on whether our community hospital will remain a public resource or be handed over to private equity.
Last month, longtime board member Barbara Taylor abruptly resigned, leaving a vacancy just weeks before the election. Within days, and without clear public notice or documentation, candidate Arlene Roblan was quietly appointed to fill the seat. Many residents, some of whom regularly monitor the hospital’s public agendas, never saw any notice of a special board meeting where this appointment would have occurred.
Hospital staff initially confirmed the appointment happened during a joint meeting of the Board and the Quality & Patient Safety Committee on April 24. But no such meeting was properly posted, as required by Oregon’s public meeting laws. The only agenda available was for the QPSC itself, which does not have the authority to appoint board members. After questions were raised, the May 13 board agenda, which initially referenced the April 24 meeting, was quietly amended to remove any mention of it.
Calls for documentation have since been met with silence. The hospital’s administrative assistant, once responsive, now refers all inquiries to legal counsel. Transparency, the bedrock of public trust, has been replaced with evasion.
By appointing a favored candidate just ahead of the election, without proper public notice or scrutiny, the board may have handed an electoral advantage to someone already on the ballot, an advantage that cannot be undone once votes are counted. That this coincides with the apparent removal of opposition signage by uniformed hospital staff only compounds the concern. It suggests a coordinated effort, whether deliberate or tacit, to tip the scales.
Bay Area Hospital is a public district entity, funded in part by taxpayers and entrusted with safeguarding the health of our region. Its board oversees everything from maternity care to emergency services to end-of-life decisions. If this institution falls under the control of those who treat democracy as a formality, or worse, an obstacle, we all pay the price.
If board seats are being filled through back channels and opposition candidates are silenced, literally, by pulling their signs out of the ground, then the outcome may already be decided. And it won’t be decided by you.
That’s why tomorrow’s vote matters, not just for who wins, but for what kind of institution we’re willing to fight for.
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