The Jefferson County Recording Fiasco Part 1 - Starring me

Welcome to 2014 and Matt Ready is in his third month of a 6 year term as public hospital commissioner. He has announced by email his intention to audio record all future commission meetings. This is the first episode of Matt Ready's personal breakdown and power analysis of the events in 2014, 2016, 2019, and 2020. If you have any thoughts or questions, please join one of the live shows or send me a tweet or instagram message. This is a pretty interesting story I think. enjoy!

Just listen my friends.
March 2014 – Hospital Commissioner Matt Ready (me) begins recording a public meeting.  He is pressured to turn it off.  He does.
March 27, 2014 – email from jhc board chair Marie Dressler:  “Matt…. should you choose to personally contact and seek advice from the District’s counsel, I want to make it crystal clear that any such consultation(s) will be solely and totally at your own expense.” 

June 2016 – Hospital Commissioner Matt Ready (me) begins recording a public meeting.  He is ordered to turn it off.  He is told he is doing wrong by recording.  He refuses to turn off the recorder until the meeting is concluded.
June 2019 – Hospital Commissioner Matt Ready directs transcripts from two above incidents to consultant Karma, frequent paid contractor for the Association of Public Hospital Districts and the Washington State Hospital Association.  Karma is scheduled to facilitate a Jefferson Healthcare all day public meeting in October 2019.  Karma promises to review the transcripts to be ready to address any issues related to recording at the October 2019 meeting.
June 2019 – I learn several employees of the the Association of Public Hospital Districts and the Washington State Hospital Association have taken an interest in the book I published with the transcripts of the two above incidents.  They promise to read it.  I have never heard any comment on the issues back.  AWPHD and WSHA have remained totally silent.
October 2019 – Jefferson Healthcare board members and Karma all fail to acknowledge the right to record and the wrong doing of pressuring someone to turn off their recorder.
November 2019 – MRSC (Municipal Research and Services Center) contacted by Matt Ready (me) but they refuse to offer an opinion on the matter beyond acknowledging the basic right to record a meeting.  MRSC is funded by the Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts.  The Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts does not allow elected hospital commissioners to serve on its board.
December 11, 2019 – Matt Ready (me) publishes my evaluation of the board and CEO calling out the fact that the Jefferson Healthcare board has been denied equal and adequate access to legal council for 6 years in regards to the right of a commissioner to record a public meeting without harassment.
December 2019 meeting – For the first time ever, a lawyer paid by Jefferson Healthcare agrees to research and give an opinion to the full Jefferson Healthcare board to answer the question:  “Can a public hospital commissioner record a meeting over the objection of the rest of the board?”.  Please note, at the 2014 meeting, it was claimed that a lawyer gave the hospital all sorts of legal advice and guidance on this matter- but NONE of that was ever written down and given to the board in a legitimate format.  It has literally taken 5 years for the board to get a lawyer to agree to give clear specific guidance on this matter.