Measure B Committee takes up Old Howard Hospital again, drops it
b'Jan 29, 2021 \\u2014 A renewed interest in using the old Howard Hospital in Willits as a psychiatric health facility revived community outcry and intimations of NIMBYism.\\nThe half-cent mental health sales tax enacted by Measure B has been in effect for about three of its five years. So far, a little over twenty one and a half million dollars have been collected. Some of the money has been used to purchase a training center in Redwood Valley and hire a contractor to remodel it. The architect Nacht and Lewis, which is also designing a new jail for the county, is almost finished with architectural plans for a Crisis Residential Treatment facility in Ukiah. \\nThe sheriff and the Ukiah Police Department are recruiting mental health workers to accompany law enforcement on calls involving psychiatric crises.\\nBut specialists to run the facilities that were the original goal of the measure have not been identified. Negotiations with a potential operator for the Ukiah facility are underway, and there\\u2019s a request for proposals from contractors to run a puff.\\n\\nWhen Old Howard Hospital was first considered as a site for the puff, the city was not enthusiastic about the idea. The Willits City Council passed an ordinance with recitals noting that the county had failed to provide the city any information about the project; that the Council believed the building does not conform to seismic and safety standards; and that the proposed use of the site does not comply with the city\\u2019s zoning requirements. The upshot of the ordinance was essentially a public records act request to the county, enfolded in a declaration of the city\\u2019s desire to be involved and informed in the decision-making process about the use of the property.\\nBut at this week\\u2019s meeting of the Measure B Citizens Oversight Committee, a sub-committee tasked with taking up the recommendations of a $30,000 report on how it should proceed brought up the issue again. The Kemper report, which was commissioned early in the committee\\u2019s tenure, calls for a variety of wellness and support services, but does not comment specifically on the hospital site.\\nDr. Jenine Miller, who runs the county\\u2019s behavioral health department and represents it on the Measure B committee, explained why she was bringing the topic forward again, urging the committee to consider the site as one of the most viable in the county, and pointing out that every community wants a puff, but \\u201cnot in my backyard.\\u201d\\nBut Commissioner Shannon Riley blasted the item on multiple grounds, calling it \\u201cgovernment at its worst.\\u201d She cited a lack of documentation, and the sub-committee\\u2019s failure to work on items it had been explicitly charged with, including bringing forth an update on a the status of the request for proposals from would-be contractors for the puff, an update on the strategic plan, or word about the doings of a financial consultant who was hired to help with the strategic plan.\\nCommissioner Mark Mertle reminded the committee that the original estimate for remodeling the hospital was $17 million, but that this estimate is now out of date. Commissioner Ace Barrash said that psychiatric hospitals do not require the same level of seismic readiness that acute hospitals do. Dr. Mills Matheson of Willits worried that patients of the hospital would be released without housing and might swell the city\\u2019s homeless population. Both he and Sherrie Ebyam, a community member, returned to Riley\\u2019s point of not having any information about who would run the facility.\\n\\n\\u201cWhy consider a particular site if you don\\u2019t know what the costs are, and if you don\\u2019t know what the available budget is for that site?\\u201d Ebyam asked.\\nIn the end, the committee did not even vote on the item. Chair Donna Moschetti paraphrased Commissioner Tom Allman\\u2019s suggestion to turn the matter over to the Board of Supervisors and the Willits City Council.\\n\\u201cIt\\u2019s been brought forth to the Measure B Committee,\\u201d she noted; \\u201cand if the supervisors want to run with it, run with it,\\u201d she concluded.'