The recent creation of a state task force by California's Health and Human Services Agency that will study the future of the state's four developmental centers has once again turned attention on the fate of the Sonoma Developmental Center.
The SDC’s 120-year old Edridge facility for the developmentally disadvantaged is the Sonoma Valley’s largest employer, but has been through a rough recent past.
Earlier this year the SDC allowed certification for four of its ten units to be withdrawn, for a number of abuses, both of rules and of patients. Those abuses included a reported rape, Tasering of patients, am inadequate or non-existent investigation of the abuse cases. The SDC faced the revocation of its primary license, so withdrew their appeal in exchange for decertifying the four units.
In late January, the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) held a forum at Ramekins Culinary Center to air reporter Ryan Gabrielson’s investigation into patient abuse at SDC and other state facilities for the care and support of the developmentally disabled.
But the attendees, many of them employees of SDC or parents of residents, brushed aside the reports to focus instead on more systemic issues, including budget cuts, a management-heavy administration and the apparent inevitability of the center's closure.
Even at that time, the rumors that SDC would be closed, or “developed” (an ironic term) into an entirely different kind of facility were in the air. Said one SDC neighbor at that meeting, "We're terrified that the developers are going to get their hands on it."
Fast forward to April 1, when SDC hired Karen Faria as its executive director, bringing her out of retirement from New Hampshire. Faria has worked at SDC previously, on several different occasions, and in different capacities, including as clinical director in the mid-2000s.
In an interview this week with the Sonoma Index-Tribune, Faria insisted she was focusing on the facility’s immediate needs through hiring new personnel (more than 60 in the last 10 weeks, according to the IJ article), training and re-training, to help clients become more independent and to “fulfill their own potential.”
“What I’m doing is, all of my energy, all of my focus, all my efforts, are about getting this place up and running, improving the quality of services to the people who are living here, and to get us re-certified,” she said. “That’s my mission, that’s the task I was given.”
Some bloggers on Sonoma Valley Patch and elsewhere are openly skeptical of Faria’s motivation, saying she was brought in to serve as “hatchet man” to close the facility.
Complicating her stated efforts is the creation of a task force by the state Health and Human Services Agency “that will recommend whether the state's four developmental centers are still viable or should be scrapped,” according to a story in the Press Democrat.
Sonoma Valley’s representative to the County Board of Supervisors, Susan Gorin, was also contacted by the Press Democrat for their story. While recognizing the necessity of caring for the current residents (or patients, or clients) of SDC – “This is the only home they’ve ever known,” she is quoted as saying – she also said she had been in discussions about what to do with the property, should it close, while declining to identify with whom she had been in such discussion.
There are only a handful of state developmental facilities left, of which SDC is the largest and oldest. The task force, which is scheduled to begin meeting by June 15 and conclude by November 15, is still being appointed, but does include Kathleen Miller, president of the center's Parent Hospital Association, whose grown son Dan Smith is resident.
No one would say that closure is date-certain, but demographics and money make it “inevitable,” according to some. No new patients have been recently admitted to the facilities as a result of the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Act of 1977, which means the patients are an aging and hence declining population. There are currently fewer than 500 in residence at the facility.
According to the Department of Developmental Services, the California Health and Human Services Agency should be posting activities of the Task Force to its web page as things move along. They will be responding to questions about the task force.
