County to Close 3 Mental Clinics

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to shut down three mental health outpatient clinics despite lingering uncertainty over whether the county can legally close them.

The supervisors, on a 4-1 vote, backed mental health director Roberto Quiroz in his bid to curtail outpatient programs at the Coastal Community Mental Health Center in Carson, the East San Fernando Valley Mental Health Services in North Hollywood and the Wilmington Mental Health Center.

Quiroz said the closings, which have been at the center of a months-long court battle, will proceed as soon as the county counsel gives him the assurance that there are no more legal hurdles.

Quick Action Planned

“I can’t give you an exact date until I meet with staff and we work out logistics, but we plan to close the clinics as soon as possible,” said Quiroz who said that action could take place in the next few weeks.

The county, which first sought to close the clinics last summer as part of a broader budget-slashing move, has been stymied by a preliminary injunction issued last August by a Superior Court judge.

Although a state Court of Appeal subsequently ordered the injunction lifted, the state Supreme Court ruled last month that the court ban on the clinic closures remained in effect until the high court could review the case.

Jim Carroll, executive director of the San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services Inc., which helped file the suit challenging the closures, warned Tuesday that the board was violating the court order by closing the clinics.

Crippled Services

But the supervisors agreed with Quiroz that the loss of clinic workers and patients from the three clinics had so crippled services and so increased safety risks that those centers should be closed and its services consolidated into the remaining clinics.

County Counsel DeWitt Clinton said his staff will review Quiroz’s proposal and decide whether to ask the Superior Court to lift the injunction. He added, however, that no court relief is needed if the closings are necessitated by other than financial reasons.

“The court order is that you cannot close the clinics because of the lack of money . . . but you could close them, for example, if you have an extreme security problem or you had an inadequate staff to maintain them,” Clinton said.

Opposing lawyers, however, argue that the county’s budget cuts are what precipitated the current crisis in the three clinics.

According to Quiroz, the number of patients and workers at the three clinics has dropped drastically--to as few as three workers and 50 patients at the Wilmington clinic.

While Supervisor Deane Dana called the proposal “a good, sound move,” board Chairman Ed Edelman, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said it was premature to shut down any clinics, especially with a court case pending.

A number of speakers, including union representatives, mental health patients, psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health care workers also urged the board to keep the clinics open and alternately blamed the county and the state for failing to adequately fund the local mental health system.

Peggy Ettlinger, who relies on the county-run clinics and is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she and other mentally ill patients have been frustrated and distressed by the threatened closings.

“I survived the Holocaust, but I’m not sure I can survive this year,” Ettlinger told the board.

Among the clinics scheduled to remain open, under the Quiroz plan, are outpatient centers in Canoga Park, Bell Gardens, San Pedro, South-Central Los Angeles and Arcadia. Outpatient programs at five other county-run facilities, which had also been scheduled for drastic cuts, will also remain untouched. These clinics will absorb some of the patients and workers from the closed centers.

The money to keep those clinics operating through August will come from $3.25 million in property tax revenues that had previously gone uncollected, officials said.