Evergreen Hospital held a public budget hearing on Nov. 12 and only one citizen showed up for it.

Could it be just apathy, or something else?

I hope the Redmond Reporter can help Evergreen Hospital get the word out in the future with public notice ads. The newspaper is Evergreen’s only mechanism for public notice.

I’ve researched the public notice ads in the Seattle Times for the Evergreen Hospital budget hearing and found only one advertisement. The ad was posted on Nov. 1, only 12 days before the hearing.

According to RCW 70.44.060(6), the Evergreen notice may have violated the code more than once, as follows: Notice of filing the proposed budget AND the date and place of the budget hearing was not published for at least two consecutive weeks, at least one time each week. In fact, I found it published only once, on Nov. 1.

The code also requires the proposed budget be filed “in the records of the Commission before the first day of November.”

Laurene Burton, Evergreen Administrative Director, wrote in a Nov. 4 Public Record Request letter: “The Commissioners received the budget information for the first time at the (Nov. 2) Study Session; therefore, they had not previously reviewed the information and formulated questions.”

Is your parent company, Sound Publishing, approved by the county for posting Evergreen public notice advertisements?

If so, I recommend Evergreen acknowledge their shortcoming, show good faith and transparency to the public and advertise with your parent company and the Seattle Times. The Evergreen budget hearings only come up once a year, so it wouldn’t be a significant expense for an organization with over $12 million in net profit, rather a courtesy to the taxpayers.

Bob Yoder, Redmond