LETTER: Hospital commissioner’s insulting remarks about Chapman a travesty

As a county commissioner, Mike Chapman has no say in city issues, such as Port Angeles water fluoridation.

Olympic Medical Center hospital Commissioner Jim Leskinovitch penned an Aug. 25 letter to the editor about Clallam County Commissioner Mike Chapman [“Against Chapman”] that was not only puzzling but also insulting and disappointing.

Things on the hospital board must really be going quite well if Mr. Leskinovitch can find the time to wade unannounced into Mike’s partisan campaign for the House seat in the 24th Legislative District.

Perhaps Mr. Leskinovitch has been taking a Rip Van Winkle-like nap for the past 16 years, during which time Mike Chapman has been the always-steady voice of reason on the board of commissioners.

Perhaps he’s been on a lengthy vacation and is unaware of Mike’s consistent support of, and his willingness to work with, other government entities such as the Port Angeles City Council and, yes, even the OMC board of commissioners.

Perhaps the good hospital commissioner doesn’t realize that the fluoride issue is a City Council problem.

As a public official, Mike Chapman would never presume to pass judgment on another government body’s decisions.

Mr. Leskinovitch said Mike Chapman “has flaws in judgment.”

I submit that a member of the OMC board of commissioners who makes uncalled-for, insulting remarks about a fellow public official — one, incidentally, with a long unblemished career in government — has engaged in totally inappropriate behavior.

And that’d a major flaw.

For shame!

Paul Martin,

Port Angeles

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