The Republican members who dominate the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners 6–3 don’t trust the Democrats who head up Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong’s administration.

An amendment establishing procedures to allow the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners to recommend health care provider vendors other than the one recommended by the administration had its first reading Sept. 25.

A motion by one of the bill’s all Republican sponsors, Commissioner Marc Grammes, to table the bill failed in a 4 - 4 vote. President Marty Nothstein was absent; the tie vote was counted as a failure to approve the motion to table the bill. It will move forward for a vote at the next regular meeting in two weeks.

Voting to table the amendment: Geoff Brace (D), Dan Hartzell (D), Marc Grammes (R), and Amy Zanelli (D). Opposed: Nathan Brown (R), Percy Dougherty (R), Amanda Holt (R), and Brad Osborne (R).

Grammes eloquently argued that the Administration’s Director of Administration Edward Hozza’s previous offer to invite Board members to sit in on health care negotiations would be sufficient to ensure the level of “trust” that he suggested was needed between the board and the administration headed by Executive Phillips Armstrong.

Grammes said that Hozza, the former mayor of Whitehall, had “offered to do workshops to show us [the Board of Directors] everything he knows.”

The bill would amend the existing Administrative Code by inserting language outlining the procedure to allow the Board to bring put on the agenda an alternative health care vendor if any Commissioner “wishes to submit an alternate selection for consideration, the name of the [health care] entity…shall be placed on the agenda.” This new provision opens the door for any one Commissioner to undo the work of the Administration’s health care negotiations for the selection of a qualified health care provider.

This will allow a (typically) part-time Commissioner with little to no expertise in health care to derail the recommendation of the Administration’s full-time health care experts. Ironically, this presumed safeguard is already built into the process because if the Board of Commissioners object to the administration’s recommendation, the Board can vote it down forcing the Administration to come up with an alternative plan.

However, Grammes’ motion to table was vigorously opposed by GOP Commissioner Nathan Brown who said the reason for his profound distrust of the administration was that Edward Hozza-the Director of Administration for Armstrong and a member of the vetting team that considers health care vendors-was also Chairman of the Lehigh Valley Democratic Committee.

“I mean, where’s the trust?” said Brown who was the acting President of the Board in Nothstein’s absence on Wednesday. “You’ve seen trust erode. It’s happening between the board and the executive.”

Brown referred back to negotiations with the Human Services employees union which dragged on for close to six months before reaching a conclusion this summer. The negotiations were conducted by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Board of Directors while Armstrong’s administration was sidelined-not invited to the table.

“Let’s pull up our pants,” said Brown. “Let’s do the right thing. The Executive and his team should be at the union negotiating table.”

This brought quick reaction from Commissioner Amy Zanelli. “You have a negotiating team that doesn’t show up.”

Zanelli was repeating a criticism she had made in the past that when the Board of Commissioners insisted that it, not the Administration, negotiate the union’s contract. She had previously claimed that members of the Board’s negotiating team were frequent no-shows for the protracted negotiations with the SEIU team.

Zanelli also challenged the idea that the Commissioners, most of whom have full-time jobs, have time to sit in on all of the negotiation.

“We should also be present for the information sessions,” said Zanelli. “Budget hearings are going on at the same time. Other meetings are going to take place at the same time.

“We are setting ourselves up for failure yet again, as we did with the budget hearings.”

In a post-meeting interview, Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong, the Press asked about the proposed amendment inserting language that will allow any Commissioner the authority to single handedly nix the recommendation from the Administration’s proposed health care provider for the County employees and retirees.

“We have a team; the Chief Financial Officer, the Human Relations Director, the Chief of Administration, myself and whoever else we need,” said Armstrong.

He said the qualified responders to the RFP (request for proposal) for health care providers are vetted through a rigorous process.

“I would have no problem if someone on the Board sat in on all of these meetings,” said Armstrong. “That Board member could have a say in the picking of a provider.”

“But [I am opposed to an amendment that would allow] for us to go through all of that work and for someone who did not attend any of these meetings to say ‘No.’”

“You have to have knowledge to make decisions,” said Armstrong.

“This administration has done absolutely nothing in two years that was not trustworthy,” said Armstrong still bristling over Brown’s claim that there is no trust between the Board and the Administration.

In a separate interview, Director of Administration Edward Hozza who is also Chairman of the Lehigh Valley Democratic Committee, said, “This County Executive [Phillips Armstrong] has bent over backwards to give the Board of Commissioners all they have asked for and more.”

“I don’t know where this [concern] about my position with the Lehigh County Democratic Committee comes from,” said Hozza.