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

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

A motion by one of the bill’s sponsors Commissioner Marc Grammes, to table the bill failed in a 4-4 vote. Commissioner 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 argued 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” he suggested was needed between the board of commissioners and the county administration headed by Armstrong.

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

The bill would amend the existing administrative code by inserting language outlining the procedure to allow the board to 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 presumed safeguard is already built into the process because if the board of commissioners objects 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 Hozza, 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?” Brown, who was the acting president of the board in Nothstein’s absence, said. “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 and the board of directors while Armstrong’s administration was sidelined – not invited to the table.

“Let’s pull up our pants,” Brown said. “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 said.

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. Zanelli had previously claimed 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,” Zanelli said. “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 with 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 Lehigh 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,” Armstrong said.

He said the qualified responders to the 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,” Armstrong said. “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,” Armstrong said.

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

In a separate interview, Hozza said, “This county executive [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,” Hozza said.