Franchot Pledges Fight for Upper Shore

“I’ll fight very hard for you.”

Those are the words today of State Comptroller Peter Franchot to a small group of demonstrators holding up signs urging that the Upper Shore Mental Health Center be kept open.

His comment – coming after he stopped his chauffeured state car and stood in the middle of Scheeler Road to greet Upper Shore supporters – is the strongest signal yet that Franchot now opposes closing the mental treatment facility here.

The comptroller had previously indicated his position change when he told the head of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to reconsider the plan to shut down the center. Franchot again indicated his support just by coming to Chestertown and touring the center.

So what does it mean? Will Upper Shore be saved?

In the view of Kent County Commissioner Ron Fithian, after the meeting, Franchot’s appearance and comments put the center about halfway to salvation. That is, it takes just one more change of a vote in the three-member Board of Public Works. But, maybe significantly, State Treasurer Nancy Kopp did not attend. Her top deputy came instead.

And, Fithian points out, Kopp is appointed to her position by the Democratically controlled General Assembly, and it will be very hard for her to go against the Democratic Governor, Martin O’Malley.

Thus, it likely will come down to what O’Malley wants. Appearing on Maryland public television last month, O’Malley said his initial decision to close Upper Shore was based on “faulty” information. He said, “We’re going back and taking another look” at killing off the center. But, he stopped short of reversing himself. And his subsequent remarks on where he stands have been fuzzy.

The showdown comes one week from Wednesday, Nov. 4, at the next meeting of the Board of Public Works.

Franchot, meantime, from everything he said today, seems squarely in the corner now of Upper Shore. He toured it for a half hour then praised it’s “unique features” and its “impressive physical plant and employees.”

The comptroller complained that all the figures printed in the press about savings to come from closing the center (numbers that originate with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene) have been wildly inaccurate.

Franchot said the savings have been put as high as $9 million. But, he said, he now understands the actual numbers would be only $1.7 million in 2010 and $5 million in 2011. And yet, he added, because of the expense of caring elsewhere for the patients if Upper Shore is closed, he questions now what the cost savings – “if any”—would really be?

Next he got an earful from Upper Shore staff and local elected officials.

State Sen. E.J. Pipkin zeroed in on the contention of state Health Secretary John Colmers that there are “robust” alternatives if the center is closed. He noted that Chester River Hospital Center is small and has no psychiatric beds. He noted that Queen Anne’s and Caroline counties have no hospitals. He pointed out that the closest private hospital for psychiatric care, in Elkton, has only 15 beds and they’re all full.

Mayor Margo Bailey advised Franchot that the Chestertown Police Department is very small and Chief Robert Edler had told her the other day that, if Upper Shore is closed, and his officers respond to a situation involving “a disturbed person,” there will be no place he can take them.

“This is all we’ve got, there isn’t anything else,” Bailey said. “Nothing.”

State Sen. Richard Sossi argued that because there simply are no other alternatives “nobody in their right mind” would vote to close Upper Shore.

Everybody burst out laughing when Franchot at that point acknowledged, “and I voted to close it.”

Fithin told the comptroller that everybody here understood that the state is in a financial crisis and the budget must be cut. He noted that 90 percent of highway revenue had been taken from Kent County – and yet, that issue hasn’t drawn protests, unlike local reactions to closing the mental health center.

“When we get to the point we are balancing the budget on the backs of the mentally ill,” Fithian wondered, “what does that say about us as human beings?”

Kent Commissioner Roy Crowe noted that Upper Shore is the county’s 10^th largest employer, with a professional staff of 90. If the 10^th largest employer in Baltimore City were shut down, Crowe observed, “there would be screams.”

Francot nodded in agreement. “Eloquent,” he said, “eloquent.”

Then, after he left the center and had his car stopped in the middle of the road where he stood in shirtsleeves and greeted Upper Shore supporters, his parting words to them were: “And keep the pressure on.”