After nearly two years without a full-time health officer, the Spokane Regional Health District is expected this week to hire a replacement for Dr. Kim Thorburn, whom the district board fired in November 2006.

It’s about time. We hope that the lone candidate who made it through the screening process justifies the long wait.

Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips’ credentials seem in order. Health District Chairman Dave Crump considers him a good fit for the district and expressed delight in the opportunity to offer a contract. For his part, Eberhart-Phillips described this area as having a public health vision, with a “wonderful district and a depth of talent.”

The district actually was ready to appoint him months ago, but he withdrew his name because of family considerations. The conflict apparently was resolved, and Eberhart-Phillips later asked that his application be reinstated.

The fact that the job was still open, and he was still the favorite, says something about the level of competition generated by the vacancy. Indeed, Eberhart-Phillips, currently health officer for El Dorado County, Calif., was the only person to make it to the interview stage.

On Friday, after consulting with other community stakeholders, the district board decided to offer him the job.

At the time of her firing, Thorburn received $125,000 a year, the lowest salary for any full-time health officer in Washington, a state that ranks near the bottom in per capita spending on public health. (The salary has since been raised to somewhere between $130,000 and $145,000.)

That, coupled with the tension surrounding Thorburn’s dismissal, was predicted by many to make it difficult to attract qualified candidates for the job. Spokane Mayor Mary Verner, who was incoming district chairman at the time, expressed hope that the vacancy could be filled by March 2007. But the search couldn’t even begin in earnest until the district reached a decision about splitting the job into two positions, and it was May before that happened. (The split was rejected.)

By September of that year, the search still hadn’t begun, but the district was planning to place national ads by Oct. 1, with hopes of having a new health officer in place by 2008. By February 2008, though, officials announced that the search was going slowly.

Now, finally, a new health officer arrives in Spokane at a time when a sour economy heightens the budgetary challenges that already faced the district.

As Benton-Franklin Health Officer Larry Jecha, who filled in for Thorburn on a donated interim basis, observed, Spokane was lucky not to face a serious public health problem during the hiatus.