Generations of Sonoma Valley residents have been dedicated employees who have performed excellent work at Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) yet because of one bad-apple employee, and the indifference of legislators, SDC’s future seems bleak. With every SDC resident that gets spirited out of the facility, Arnold Drive inches closer to becoming a 4-lane highway. The land may not be sold to developers right away, but legislators at all levels are likely seduced by the promise of a billons in a one-time infusion to the state, and promise of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in property taxes.
Our system of checks and balances has collapsed. Since the infamous “Taser” incident, a task force, heavily stacked with anti SDC members has put forth not a plan, but a depiction of a plan that SDC would serve five behaviorally challenged individuals, while the collection of irreplaceable services and expertise is lost forever. As the election nears almost everyone agrees that special interests control Sacramento, but few realize how “various administrative agencies get involved with the legislative process this co-mingling of duties (has been a concern), but with the drafting of bills, it (is) a blatant disregard of our constitutional rights.” (Excerpted from Emily Rooney, President of the Agricultural Council of California, in her article: State Legislature Shirks U.S. Constitution in Development of Groundwater Bills (Blue Diamond Growers -Almond Facts; page 30; September/October 2014).
The state’s own Dept. of Developmental Services (DDS) has recently used the Trailer Bill mechanism to escalate aggressive de-population of SDC despite the verified human cost of doing so. Currently, SDC residents appropriately residing at the center for decades are being removed and placed in the self-regulated care home system, run by non-profit agencies that contract with the state. The Trailer Bill mechanism enabled the legislation to pass without public knowledge or hearings.
The human cost was verified almost 20 years ago by UC Riverside comparative mortality research that passed scientific peer-review and was published. Far higher mortality, due to abuse and neglect, was revealed in the care home industry compared to the state centers. The press devoted over 18 months of coverage to the issue. Shockingly, later it was later revealed that during that period the DDS had suppressed its own mortality study of 20 deaths within care homes, 16 of which were deemed to be caused by abuse or neglect.
There was an opportunity for reform. Yet when then State Senator Mike Thompson held a hearing the UC researcher was given short shrift. The Senator was skeptical about the research findings from the start, voicing his opinion in the lead newspaper’s editorials. His position matched the anti-developmental center ideology openly promoted by his legislative consultant.
Thus, then and now, citizens of our state -parents and families whose disabled loved ones live at SDC and other centers rank fourth behind the interests of the non-profit industry, a state agency and a legislative consultant. Yet now when Congressman Thompson desires to remain in office he courts the votes of these parents and families. It would be refreshing for him to hold the DDS accountable for its “co-mingling of duties.” Valley residents should raise a cry about the “Trailer Bill” trick and the legislative indifference to the mortality rate.
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