Editor,

It is refreshing for a change to have a local race like the Hospital Board, Position No. 2 and actually have some candidates you can really separate. Often there is such little information on the candidates I find myself Googling them to find any information I can on them.

I don’t know Rob Born from Joe Schmoe or Georgia Gardner from Jane Doe, but I learned everything I needed to make an informed vote from the letters to the editor from the last month.

Yes – the letters to the editor.

The choice here can’t be any clearer as pointed out so eloquently in the editorial from the Whidbey News-Times from last Wednesday’s edition. Some of the things folks expect from government agencies are transparency and accountability. That is why police agencies make the news a lot when the public believes the “blue wall of silence” has formed around one of the police departments.

This last month, I read a lot of letters either in support of Georgia Gardner or in opposition to Rob Born. It seemed a lot of these letters were signed by folks who have an M.D. or R.N. after their name, or a former public information officer for Whidbey General Hospital.

It is clear the “blue wall” folks of Whidbey General closed ranks around Georgia Gardner. This tells me this candidate is part of the good ol’ boys (or girls) club of Whidbey General. The club of secrecy that once responded to my public information request with an email deriding my request rather than helping me to get the information I was seeking.

The “status quo” doesn’t want Rob Born involved in their business.

The choice is clear — if you are happy with hospital mismanagement, fiscal irresponsibility, paying for criminal defense of employees, and secrecy, then by all means your vote should go to Georgia Gardner.

However, if you feel that more questions should be answered by this hospital and the administration, the choice is Rob Born.

I know who I’m voting for.

Thomas Kosloske

Oak Harbor