Human Services Agency

* The Board of Supervisors’ decision to take the Behavioral Health Department away from the Health Care Agency and place it under the Public Social Services Agency, which is to be renamed the Human Services Agency, is an almost amusing shuffling of chairs and senior bureaucrats.

This pastime that absorbs so much of the time of our elected leaders and civil servants is an understandable expression of restless human ego. Unfortunately it is also very profligate waste of human energy and of public funds. County government should be using its time and influence to address problems of public health--physical, mental and psychological--of our residents. Structure is very secondary to process.

The current political entwinements in this affair involved time-consuming analysis by Chief Administrative Officer Lin Koester and his staff, assisted by the inveterate “outside consultant.” This thorough report from the CAO was not mentioned in the public decision-making of April 7 by the Board of Supervisors, as it ignored the wise recommendation of the CAO that reorganization was not appropriate at this time. Because of its cost and seriousness, one would have expected at least some public exchange about the CAO report among the supervisors.

The present shuffling about to “reorganize” our social and health services repeats the last reorganization, which took place two years ago. The bureaucratic shuffle goes on and on and is a depressing avocation in which our leadership is trapped.

For several years I have been a member of the Mental Health Board, and I’ve never witnessed quite so much confusion and expense devoted to chair shuffling. Especially in this election year, thoughtful citizens should try to parse out this affair.

EDWARD SHUCK

Thousand Oaks