County Watch
by G. L. Penney

 On October 12, the auditorium was filled as the county legislature listened for more than two hours to people directly connected with the department of mental health, as either providers or consumers. (The politically correct word is no longer clients.) The seven consumers who spoke seemed especially eloquent. Quite obviously, the Department of Mental Health had helped them very much.

 However, the legislators' complaint with the department was not with the quality of treatment but with the relatively high cost. It seems that each of the psychiatric practitioners performs relatively few interviews each day, that the department is overstaffed. To their credit, when the actual public meeting took place, the legislature voted to eliminate two mental health staff positions. Only Mrs. Leavenworth voted no.

 Actually these two positions were only auxiliary staff and not practitioners, but the legislature has taken the first small step to begin reducing the county tax burden.