COEUR d’ALENE — The winners of a race for three seats on the Kootenai Hospital District board of trustees will sit on a nonfunctional board with no assets or operations.

During the 2022 legislative session, state lawmakers unanimously approved a bill granting hospital districts the ability to transition to a nonprofit 501(c)(3) model. The law had been available to county hospitals since 1986. 

Kootenai Health completed a conversion to a nonprofit Jan. 1, 2024, giving up its taxing authority, sovereign immunity and power of eminent domain, and conveying the district’s assets to the nonprofit. The trustees who were in place at the time of the conversion formed the initial board for the nonprofit. 

The hospital district board has no employees, assets or operations. But Idaho law requires trustees to continue to meet and elections to continue until the hospital district is dissolved. Monthly meetings take about five minutes and consist of approving meeting minutes from the previous month.  

“The only thing the board really does is oversee a couple of frozen retirement plans,” said trustee David Bobbitt. “The assets are all in the nonprofit’s name.”  

The sole power that remains to the elected board is to levy taxes for a hospital that no longer belongs to the hospital district. Kootenai Health has not exercised its taxing authority since 1995.  

“If the board did decide to levy, there would be nowhere for that money to go,” said trustee Elizabeth Godbehere. 

Six candidates are running in the May 20 election, seeking seats on the non-functional board. Elizabeth Godbehere, Luke Sommer, Cynthia Clark, David Bobbitt and Karina Angiletta will appear on ballots, while Terri Seymour is running as a write-in candidate. 

Clark and Angiletta could not be reached for comment, while Sommer indicated he was unavailable to comment on this story. Seymour was unavailable to comment due to a family emergency. 

In a voter guide published by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, Sommer and Seymour expressed concerns about the nonprofit conversion. 

“I’m stepping up because I want to help restore what was lost: trust, openness and accountability in the hospital’s leadership,” Sommer said. 

Seymour sharply criticized the conversion process. 

“An unelected board has taken control, quietly replacing a publicly accountable board with one that serves private interests,” she said. “This wasn’t a reform. It was a hijacking. It seems it was done through loopholes, rushed votes and a shocking lack of transparency.” 

Before trustees voted on the matter during a public meeting, Kootenai Health published a white paper outlining the benefits, drawbacks and considerations for the transition. Trustees and hospital administrators presented the white paper at an informational meeting, where they answered questions about the process submitted by the public. 

As North Idaho’s population grows and ages, Bobbitt said, the nonprofit model will allow Kootenai Health to remain competitive. 

“As a public entity, when you have strategic planning meetings, all the competition can come in and listen to what you're doing,” he said. “We needed to become more strategically aligned.” 

Few hospital districts of a similar size to Kootenai Health exist. Before the conversion, there were only 22 left in the United States. Today, only one such hospital with more than 300 beds exists in the Pacific Northwest: Evergreen Health in Kirkland, Wash. 

“My goal is to expose corruption that's infected local government, to hold those responsible accountable, and to help the people of this county take back what is rightfully theirs,” Seymour said in the voter guide.

Bobbitt said such comments give the impression that the elected trustees have more authority than they do in reality.

“The only organization that could force the assets back to the taxing district is the 501(c)(3) and there’s no chance of that,” he said.

Bobbitt was appointed to an open seat on the hospital board in 2019, after his wife of 28 years, Cherie, died from leukemia. 

“My purpose was to give back to the hospital that took such good care of my wife,” he said, his voice wavering with emotion.  

Bobbitt brought with him more than 47 years of experience in the banking industry and decades of public service. He served on the North Idaho Fair Board for 18 years and held leadership roles in the Post Falls Chamber of Commerce and the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce. In 2021, Idaho Gov. Brad Little appointed Bobbitt as the Idaho Fish and Game Commission Panhandle Region representative. 

“The reason I’m running is to try to keep continuity with the board and maintain good leadership through this transition period,” he said. 

Godbehere began working at Kootenai Health as a certified nursing assistant in 2001. She went through nursing school while working in the ER, then moved into labor and delivery and then the ICU. She was elected to the hospital board in 2019 and ran because she believed the board would benefit from a nurse’s perspective.

“I had all four of my kids (at Kootenai Health),” she said. “My parents both had open heart surgery in this hospital. I worked in the ICU where my sister died. I have a pretty strong connection to the hospital.” 

During her many years at Kootenai Health, Godbehere has watched the hospital and the community change. She believes the conversion made sense for Kootenai Health. 

“The hospital district model wasn’t serving the community anymore,” he said. “The main feature of that is being able to levy a tax and we haven’t used that ability since 1995. The 501(c)(3) model makes Kootenai Health a stronger hospital.” 

Under Idaho law, any hospital district that has ceased to function for two or more years may be dissolved by the board of county commissioners. In Kootenai County, the hospital district will be eligible for dissolution Jan. 1, 2026. 

“We certainly intend to request that the commissioners dissolve the hospital district in early 2026, pursuant to the statute, because it is not serving any function,” Joel Hazel, chief legal officer for Kootenai Health, told The Press in April. 

In the meantime, the elected board has no authority over the nonprofit. 

“I think the bottom line is people are really proud of their hospital and they want it to stay Kootenai Health,” Godbehere said. “We’re out to continue to be a standalone community hospital that continues to grow and improve and add services and do the best we can for the community we serve.”