Hoping for a next time

Kootenai County missed out once. If local legislators can briefly trade ideology for reality and follow through with practical solutions, maybe we won't miss out next time.

Lack of strong legislative support was instrumental in the state overlooking Coeur d'Alene in funding its first mental health crisis center. The clear front-runner all along, Coeur d'Alene missed out; Idaho Falls will be home to the first such facility.

The competition between Boise, Idaho Falls and Coeur d'Alene shouldn't have happened in the first place. At the outset of the 2014 legislative session, Gov. Butch Otter made a strong appeal for $5.1 million to build and staff three such centers, modeled after a highly successful facility in Billings, Mont. There, a center opened in 2006 and, with 20 beds, has proved to be an effective safety net to treat at-risk mentally ill people whose symptoms often land them in hospital emergency rooms or jail cells. Neither place is appropriate - or affordable - for such treatment.

The toll from this crisis is immeasurable from social and moral perspectives, and it is painfully real from a fiscal view, too. That's why lack of majority legislative support from conservative Kootenai County legislators was so mystifying and disappointing.

It would have taken little more than picking up the phone and talking to Kootenai Health CEO Jon Ness or any one of numerous law enforcement officials and mental health experts for the naysaying legislators to learn that the financial benefit of dealing locally and more effectively with some of these people in crisis would far outweigh the costs. Instead of refusing to bow to the perceived evil idol of government handouts, the naysayers could have provided a desperately needed service to the region while proving to be fiscally responsible.

Our hope is that this will simply prove to be a brief delay rather than an insurmountable roadblock. The entire legislative body can approve funding in 2015 for two more crisis centers, including one in Coeur d'Alene. If it does come down to funding availability for only one site, local legislators can do their own research and learn that the benefits of such a facility would far outweigh the political and fiscal costs, then vote in support. And if that ideological barrier isn't breached? Idaho Health and Welfare, which ultimately makes the site decisions, can ignore several ill-informed legislators and instead heed the call of an entire region.