Mendocino County mental health advocates torn on mental health facilities tax

Advocates of a Mendocino County ballot measure that would raise sales tax rates countywide by a half-percent for five years, creating some ?$37 million to build mental health and drug rehabilitation facilities, agree additional mental health services are needed.

What they disagree about, though, is whether Measure AG is the way to go about accomplishing that.

The ballot measure would not fund any services or pay for operating facilities. The county would be on the hook for both, potentially generating a $5 million county bill annually, a financial report commissioned by the county has found.

“The initiative does not allocate one single dollar for services to our mentally ill friends, family or neighbors,” wrote Nancy Sutherland, the recently retired chairwoman of the Mendocino County Behavioral Health Advisory Board, in a letter to the Ukiah Daily Journal.

She called the plan “unrealistic” and “an excessive unnecessary burden” to the county’s finances and urged area residents to vote against Measure AG and its companion measure, AH, which authorizes collection of the tax.

Both must pass with two-thirds majority for the project to move forward. The current chairman, John Wetzler, also voiced concerns, but his board has yet to take a formal stand.

Other mental health advocates support the measure. They believe the money to operate the facilities can be found through existing and additional state and federal funding sources.

“This is an excellent and essential start” to improving mental health care in Mendocino County, said Sonya Nesch, a member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and a former member of the county’s advisory board.

Measure AG, launched by Sheriff Tom Allman, proposes building five separate units:

A 16-bed acute, locked psychiatric hospital;

a 12-bed mental health crisis residential unit;

A 12-bed alcohol-?and-drug residential unit;

A new mental health outpatient clinic;

A building for training police and others who respond to mental health crises.

The measure does not specify where the structures would be built or how they would be staffed, leaving that to an 11-member oversight committee to be created following passage of the ballot measure. The measure also would fund a study to determine the projects’ specifics.

Its expected funds would be borrowed against the sales tax revenue to build the facilities. Proponents weren’t sure what would happen to measure money if, for some reason, the facilities weren’t built.

A financial analysis of the measure estimated it would cost about $30 million annually to operate the facilities. County supervisors commissioned the report out of concern about its potential impacts, but most - four of five - endorsed the ballot measures in August.

“Developing local mental health facilities is going to improve our ability to deliver better mental health services,” said Supervisor John McCowen. “Nothing will be built without a complete needs assessment and extensive stakeholder and community input,” he said.

Supervisor Dan Hamburg voted against endorsing the measure based on concerns about the costs and efficacy of the project, the potential budget deficit and the lack of funding for services.

Hamburg said a needs assessment should have been done before launching the ballot measure, and county mental health and other officials should have been consulted before making the leap.

“I think that this is an initiative that comes from a very good place but has not really been thoroughly thought through,” Hamburg said. “I was pretty shocked when four board members chose to be proponents.”

He also questioned the need for new buildings and said the county has plenty of structures, including a recently vacated hospital in Willits.

But Allman is confident that funding for staffing and services at the new facilities can be worked out. He said the county spent $3.5 million last year sending mental health patients to psychiatric facilities outside the county.

That is money that could go toward operating a new psychiatric holding facility should the measure pass. Additional funding could be generated by taking patients from other counties, Allman said.

Mendocino County closed its previous psychiatric hospital in 1999, citing costs and difficulty attracting and maintaining qualified staff.

Now, patients in acute crisis typically are held in a local hospital until a bed can be found for them in a psychiatric facility outside the county. Often, law enforcement officers must wait with them. They sometimes are handcuffed to a hospital bed or end up in jail because they’ve committed a minor crime, Allman said.

You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 707-462-6473 or glenda.anderson@pressdemocrat.com.