Willits Balks

Willits officials and residents object to Measure B Committee’s plans to remodel the old Howard Hospital

Willits is not happy with the apparent attempt to rush a Psychiatric Health Facility into their small town.

Several officials from the city of Willits, along with a number Willits residents, complained to the Measure B Advisory Committee last Wednesday that it seemed like Willits was being left out of plans to convert the old Howard Hospital into a 16- or 32-bed Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF).

Sheriff Allman’s Measure B committee, of course, has not officially proposed the old Hospital for that purpose. But the Hospital Foundation, which owns the land and the old building, lead by the redoubtable Willits Republican, Margie Handley, have assumed their building is so well suited for conversion to the new PHF that they’ve independently paid consultants and architects tens of thousands of dollars to draw up plans for the conversion and have made two detailed presentations to the Measure B committee about the conversion.

But Handley’s presumption seems to have blind-sided Willits, and Willits doesn’t like it.

Handley’s assumption about the desirability of her old structure as a PHF is premature, given that the Measure B Committee hasn’t even launched their “needs assessment” yet.

But Allman’s Committee hasn’t done much to disabuse the public of the impression that the old Hospital is being fast-tracked into a multi-million dollar conversion project either. In fact, several committee members have observed that the Committee can proceed quicker by doing a needs assessment at the same time as they start planning to remodel yesteryear’s Howard Hospital.

The core of the Willits opposition came from Willits officials, lead by City Manager Stephanie Garrabrant-Sierra.

“We assumed that you would be coming before the city for discretionary permitting,” the articulate Garrabrant-Sierra began. “However our attorney has reported to us that if the county were to purchase this building you would be exempt from all discretionary permits for the city. This of course causes us some concern that we would not be involved in the discretionary permits except for one aspect. I'm told that there is a state hospital permit that will have to be complied with. However, and I'm sure you don't know this, but our building inspector and code compliance officer was approached by the architect on this projectm and he was asking how he could skirt that regulation so that there would be no discretionary permit involved with that as well.”

Garrabrant-Sierra continued, “And that would mean that we would have no discretionary permitting power from the City of Willits. I think that's what we are a little bit concerned about. We would like a seat at the table so that we can make sure that this project is the best that it can be, and if the project requires any mitigations we can talk about those and we can talk about the land uses and the zoning and the various issues that this property leads to. I think that that's fair to the city of Willits. We want to open our arms to you and invite you to the City Council meetings and make a presentation on what your plan is. I think that's fair. I think you can come to us and the City of Willits and talk about what you are planning and how you are planning it.”

She went to say that the Willits fire chief “is particularly concerned.” “He says that this is a very challenged building, possibly more so than you may realize. He urges you to be in touch with the State Fire Marshal,” who, Garrabrant-Sierra said, “has not been contacted about this.”

Ms. Garrabrant-Sierra was referring to the Handley-Foundation team’s questionable assertion that the remodeled building would not need to meet California’s restrictive “OSHPD” (Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development) hospital (seismic) construction standards, which, if it did, would raise the cost from their current estimates of $11-$15 million.

Other officials complained about the cost of increased calls for service. (The County’s old PHF unit in Ukiah was practically an adjunct of the Ukiah Police Department.) The fire chief said the old hospital was “very challenged” and that the State Fire Marshall should be consulted about those deficiencies. Willits Councilman and former Police Chief Jerry Gonzales wanted the Measure B people to meet with the City Council before doing anything with the old Hospital.

Several Willits residents also complained, saying the cost will probably go up, the unit will be hard to staff, the Handley team’s estimate of 16 beds in the facility is too many since Mendo only has an average of seven 5150s in lock-up facilities at any given time, not enough is being done to reduce the need for locked facilities, greater attention should be given to more distributed non-lock-up facilities throughout the county, it’s too close to three downtown schools, the committee is moving too fast…

Mental Health consultants Lee Kemper and Jim Featherstone explained their functions in preparing the needs assessment — a recommendation for which is to be placed before the Board of Supervisors at their first May meeting. Kemper said his assessment would address “a sustainable spending plan,” locations. goals, objectives, integration with other services for both substance abuse and mental health, identification of service gaps, options, staffing problems…

Committee Chair Sheriff Tom Allman said that after Kemper’s needs assessment, he expected they would then start on a Request for Proposals from private outfits who would bid on staffing the PHF (presumably the remodeled Howard Hospital) because “we need to know cost of having a company run this.”

Mr. Kemper’s consulting partner Jim Featherstone responded to some of the Willits worries by saying that a locked PHF facility does not present any more security problems than a hospital emergency room, and that some of the fears of neighbors seemed exaggerated.

Sheriff Allman noted that a PHF is not for inmates. Non-criminal 5150s in crisis are not dangerous and are not at all the same as the patients who will be housed in the new Mental Health wing at the jail, a facility currently in the planning stages.

County CEO and Committee member Carmel Angelo tried to tell the Willits contingent that they were making “lots of assumptions. If we had the answers we wouldn’t need a needs assessment. No decisions have been made, no locations have been selected.”

Angelo sailed past the fact that the Handley and the Hospital Foundation had also made “lots of assumptions” of the done deal genre.

Although Jed Diamond, the Committee’s Willits rep, said he’d try harder to keep Willits informed of the Committee’s activities in the future, nobody on the Committee made any commitments to make sure Willits is part of the official process should Howard Hospital become the Committee’s preferred PHF location.