Mental Health Chief in Hiding Over Arrest Threat

Michigan’s mental health chief became a fugitive briefly Friday in a dispute with a judge over cuts to the state’s main psychiatric research center.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Richard Hathaway signed a warrant for James Haveman’s arrest when he failed to appear in court and promise to keep open Detroit’s Lafayette Clinic.

But late Friday, the Michigan Court of Appeals blocked the warrant, relieving Haveman of the threat of imminent arrest. Haveman, whose whereabouts Friday had been kept secret, was not available for comment.

“Think about it. If there was a warrant out for your arrest, would you come in to work?” said Tom DeLoach, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Mental Health.

The showdown focuses on cuts to the 89-bed clinic, which accepts difficult cases from throughout Michigan. Gov. John Engler cut the clinic’s $17.5-million allocation for this fiscal year, which began Thursday. Haveman wants to close three of the clinic’s five wards and transfer its research to nearby Wayne State University.

The clinic remained open Friday on a reduced scale, using leftover funds from the last fiscal year.

Hathaway said he wanted Haveman to assure him that the clinic would be kept open 60 more days. But there is only enough money to keep it open another month, DeLoach said.

Last week, the Democrat-controlled House restored state aid to the clinic. The Republican-run Senate has not acted.

Rusty Hills, spokesman for the Republican governor, denounced the judge’s actions as “outrageous and flat-out wrong.”

“There’s constitutional law and there’s Hathaway law,” he said. “We have a plan for every patient at Lafayette Clinic. This is not about patients or mental health. This is about union bosses and bureaucrats.”

Haveman’s plans to cut services at Lafayette and close or consolidate more institutions sparked a lawsuit by unionized state workers and the Mental Health Assn. of Michigan.

In April, Hathaway banned cuts at the clinic. He said they could result in “significant risk of suicide, homicide, self-abuse or injury” to discharged patients. He said the state must keep the clinic open even after the fiscal year’s end.