Council Says an Emphatic No to Fluoridation, Looks to Alternatives for Low-Income Kids

The handwriting was on the wall when Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk made a motion to approve staff recommendation number one, in support of fluoridation, and his motion received no second.  Eventually the council would approve a motion by Rochelle Swanson to support staff recommendation number two, which would turn down fluoridation and instead direct staff to engage with folks in the community for access to preventative care.

The 4-1 vote would buck the near-unanimous support of the public health community, the school district and the county.  However, the council had to weigh in politics.  They understood that over the more than 50 speakers who came for public comment, nearly two-thirds were against fluoridation.

They understood the water project itself passed by a narrow 54-46 margin and that, had fluoridation been on the ballot, it would have gone down.  Councilmember Lucas Frerichs feared this would be seen as a bait and switch.

And so in the end, whether the council supported fluoridation in concept, they were mindful of the politics of the community which seems to be tilting heavily against it.

Having heard the voices from both the community and public health organizations, Tuesday night, despite the hour and forty-five minutes of public comment, was really about the voices we had not heard in the community – those of the council itself.

“I think it’s fitting that we’re doing this on the day that the Affordable Care Act is under threat in Washington,” Mayor Pro Tem Wolk started.  He continued, “That is an example of a politically difficult decision and that involves a governmental mandate that requires individuals to buy insurance.  People have been vociferously decrying that as taking away their freedoms – but it was the right decision.”

“It was a politically difficult decision, but it was the right one,” he said.  “Just as I think fluoride is the right decision for a number of the reasons that were raised tonight.  I absolutely stand with the public health community on this issue.”  He would add, “I stand with the folks who were actually providing direct services to low income children.  I stand with public health officers past and present.”

“I really do believe… that we have an obligation as policy makers to those children,” the Mayor Pro Tem stated.  “I would really urge my colleagues to support our children’s dental health.”

Following his remarks, Mr. Wolk made the motion in favor of the staff recommendation favoring fluoridation, that would die for lack of a second.

Councilmember Lucas Ferichs noted, in a positive light, the “inundation of public input on this proposal.”  He remarked that there was “quite a bit of passion on both sides of this debate.”

He would then go into a personal story about his mother’s choice to limit sugar in his diet at a young age and the fact that he would not get a cavity until he was about 12 years old when he lived in Anchorage, Alaska, which has fluoridation.

He said that he sees this issue as largely being about sugar and sees the need from both a dental health perspective and also in terms of obesity and overall health concerns to look into sugar consumption as a root cause of a number of those issues.

He then turned to discuss Measure I, which he called “a very contentious debate in this community” over the course of the last year that he and Brett Lee were thrust right into the middle of.

He noted, looking at the ballot argument in favor of Measure I, that he and Mayor Krovoza drafted the ballot argument in favor of supplying the city with a long-term supply of clean water.  “Nowhere in the ballot argument on Measure I does it mention anything about fluoride or fluoridation of the water,” Mr. Frerichs said.  “I advocated for Measure I and when I was out trying to convince my fellow Davis friends, neighbors, citizens, to support what I believed was a much needed project to provide clear and reliable surface water, nowhere was there a mention or discussion ever of fluoridation of the water supply.”

He noted that, while things change, “it just feels, though, almost like a bait and switch in some ways to come forward now after the success of Measure I.”  Most pointedly he noted, “I think that had it been included in Measure I, it could well have resulted in Measure I’s failure.”

He expressed frustration that this would come up after the fact.  He also argued, “To me, putting a chemical in our water supply to me seems to be an inefficient way to deliver fluoride, particularly when 99-plus percent of it ends up down the drain.”

He concluded that he believes in science, but in this case believes in the benefits of topical fluoride and does not support the proposed delivery method.

Councilmember Rochelle Swanson said, “We live in a representative democracy and don’t want to battle about alphabet soup… but we’re charged with balances of all of the rights within the community and with considering on the whole what we’re supposed to do.”

“This is one issue that I have to say is not 50-50, there are a lot of people here tonight on both sides,” she said.  “In all of the emails, I would say it’s 10-1 of people who are begging us to not put it in the water.  This isn’t a couple of people with hysteria.”

She said, “We do have alternatives and we are a smart community.”

“I’m just not comfortable to do something when so many people have asked us to actually give them a choice,” Ms. Swanson continued.  “That vote (referring to Measure I) was forty percent of our community – 54.1 to 45.9 – I do think a lot of people did not expect fluoride.  I would hate for the unintended consequence to be that people would try to stop the surface water project and then fluoride become moot.”

Councilmember Brett Lee said, “Having made a proposal for alternatives to fluoridating the water, some sort of mobile dental clinics or early childhood preventative care programs, I am cautioned by the fact that when proponents of fluoridation and the majority of those who are proponents of fluoridation are involved with health care delivery, when we discussed the possible alternatives to this, that they did not seem very enthusiastic about it.”

Councilmember Lee said he found that fairly interesting.  He said that he thought his idea might have been one to bring both sides together and was surprised when it did not.  “I must admit when they showed a fair degree of hesitancy to embrace those ideas, gives me pause because they are the ones who are most knowledgeable about this aspect of community care.”

That said, he noted he shared his colleagues concerns about voting to fluoridate the water.

Councilmember Lee was concerned about what happened in Portland, where the city council voted to fluoridate the water, the voters objected and put a measure on the ballot, the community was deeply divided and ultimately the council decision was overturned.

“About $2 million was spent by both sides,” he said.  “It was a very contentious election.  A lot of time, energy, and money was spent on the election which I think could have been better spent on preventative healthcare.  At the end of the day, the proponents of fluoride were not successful and the community does not have fluoridated water, and all of that time and energy spent on the election is pretty much lost forever.”

He said he was not comfortable with a straight vote against fluoridation and would want a situation where people could donate to helping to provide preventative dental care programs to lower income people.

Mayor Joe Krovoza went last and echoed many of the concerns mentioned by his colleagues.  He noted that there is a cost to community for the water project, at the same time the council has worked hard to bring down the overall costs.

“This will add a cost,” he said.  “Quite frankly it will add what is a pretty small cost, but it will be asking people who are not interested in having fluoride in their water to pay for those who do want water to be fluoridated in the community.”

He called this a cross-subsidy, where one group is asked to pay for something that another group wants.  When the government is deciding to regulate what people put in their bodies, they have to be extremely cautious to ensure that what they doing is for the public good.

“The comments about choice, I think, are spot on,” he said.  “People who choose to have fluoride get to choose, but if we were to put fluoride in the water, those who don’t want fluoride don’t have the right to choose.”

Like his colleagues, the mayor was concerned about the surface water project and Measure I.

“This project was approved 54-46,” he said and stated, “There is no question in my mind that if we had let the public know that fluoride would be put in the water, the project would not pass and the great good that’s being done for this community by moving forward with this water project would not be happening.”

Woodland would not be saving money with us, and the city would be struggling along with groundwater.

“I’ll also point out that the project is not done,” the mayor added.  “We don’t have a contract to build it yet.  We don’t have the financing in place to move forward with it.  And the water rates that this community approved are under legal challenge.  So we have a ways to go.”

Right before the vote, Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk made a final comment in support of fluoridation.

“I sincerely hope that we can revisit this issue of fluoridation in the future,” Mr. Wolk stated.  He urged his colleagues to talk to health care professions about “what is the best way to help address these dental problems with children.”

“I’m going to vote no on this motion.  Again I’m disappointed that we’re missing out what is clearly the most cost-effective way to improve our community health,” he said.

The council voted 4-1, with Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk dissenting, to look at alternatives to fluoridation.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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