Social Services and Mental Health

* Marie Antoinette, when told that the people of France were starving because they had no bread, said “Let them eat cake.”

The Marie Antoinettes on the Ventura County Board of Supervisors recently told the mentally ill to do the same. It was a truly disgraceful affair with some mental health professionals ushering in the mentally ill to advise the supervisors on how to run a million-dollar taxpayer-supported program.

It looked to be a raucous, staged presentation that drowned out the pleas of a few involved in the field as parents or volunteers pleading for a delay of what appeared to be a planned slam-dunk.

The two supervisors who seemed to be out of the loop professed that they didn’t really understand what was being proposed and could not vote for it. “It” was a long and complicated motion delivered by Supervisor Susan Lacey. The county executive’s report, public input, opposing opinions and the mentally ill be damned. The mentally ill will be moved over to the Department of Social Services and out of the County Hospital’s supervision.

There is a huge difference between the clients of the Public Social Service Agency and those of Mental Health. Supervisors Lacey, Kathy Long and John K. Flynn either don’t see the quality of difference or have some other agenda.

Maybe we are not dealing with Marie Antoinette but Alice in Wonderland. The county employees’ union is just like Alice: Feed her mushrooms and she keeps getting bigger and bigger until she destroys the house in which she sits. The public servants are making the public their servant, thanks to the supervisors mentioned above.

DICK CLEMENCE

Ventura