No Confidence Vote for BFHD Director

Benton Franklin Health District Members of the union PROTEC17 have released a letter stating a vote of "no confidence" in current BFHD Administrator Jason Zaccaria.  In the letter the union says the vote of no confidence in Zaccaria, who has been the District Administrator since 2011, is a culmination of events with the most recent being the termination of Senior Manager for Surveillance and Investigation, Rick Dawson.

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Dawson had been at BFHD for 38 years before his termination.  The union stated that his dismissal has "caused a major disruption to staff and services and represents a pattern of behavior on behalf of the Administrator."

Behavior the union called into question included other terminations they said were "sudden" along with Dawson's dismissal.  They cited two Operations Directors, Bruce Perkins and Sandy Owens, that they believed were terminated in a fashion similar fashion to Dawson back in 2012.

Also mentioned was the dismissal in 2016of Nick Bouckas, who replaced Perkins and Owens, that they felt was not transparent to staff.

Other issues raised in the letter by the union was leadership during the COVID-19 response by Zaccaria and favoritism shown to certain employees of the Health District.

Zaccaria came to the Benton Franklin Health District from Hanford Site Occupational Medicine Clinics where he held an Executive Leadership role.

Newsradio 610 KONA has reached out to Zaccaria, who is currently on medical leave from BFHD, for comment as well as Chairman of the Benton Franklin Health District Board Rocky Mullen.