Dyan Neary

You expected it.

So did it confirm in your mind that this was a direct response?

How did you feel?

I did check with the county on all this, and the county executive, who oversees its finance department, said staff cuts were being considered in many departments that year.

And Mark's department was among them, yes, but those cuts were never formally proposed, and they weren't retaliatory.

With no staffing cuts on the line, Mark had a new choice to make.

He could bury his report in a drawer and keep his head down.

Or he could ignore the county's advice and go ahead and release it.

He decided to hire a lawyer friend, asked him to pore over the document and advise him on the risk.

The lawyer told Mark to cut the names of the doctors, cut any mention of Lehigh Valley Health Network.

The 50-page draft shrank by 11 pages.

Mark got his staff's approval to release the new version, but he didn't want to publish it until the budget actually went to print.

He was paranoid by this point, maybe.

Or smart.

The county budget is like a physical book.

Once it was printed, Mark knew the commissioners wouldn't cut his budget.

Because if they did, the public might interpret the move as punitive, since the original number was right there in the budget book, in black and white.

Mark published his report to the county website on a Wednesday morning, issued a press release, and immediately got to work coordinating with the families.

The commissioners' meeting was that same night, and all these families had to get ready, fast.

The yellow family, who had the baby with brittle bone disease.