Ukiah Daily Journal from Ukiah, California • Page 2

Daily Journal, Uklah, Calif. Wednesday, AAarch 7, 1979 TEMPLE (Cont'd from Page 1) At present, Klatte is director of mental health, alcohol and drug abuse services for the Orange (bounty Health Services Agency. Did Klatte dream up the Mendocino Plan? "Sure it Was me," he said adding that the plan "was never activated." Under the plan that never was implemented as Klatte envisioned, Mendocino State Hospital would have absorbed social workers from the now defunct state Bureau of Social Work, according to Klatte. The goal was to create a program that would give patients optimal care both in the hospital and after placement in family care homes, he explained. "Frequently we felt like the patient fell through the cracks and got lost," once released from full-time hospital care, said the doctor.

Klatte said the pre-1969 state social work bureaus in Ukiah and Santa Rosa were responsible for looking after patients released from the mental hospital. But, Klatte noted, coordination between the bureaus and the hospital was less than ideal so he came up his proposal to improve it. "Some sociar workers," he said, dubbed his proposal the "Mendocino Plan." They thought up the name as pejorative, he said with amusement, in the sense "we must fight the Mendocino Plan." They saw it as a "threat to their autonomy," said Klatte. For reasons he was not sure of, someone transferred the Bureau of Social Work out of the state mental health department and into the social services department, where people like Klatte couldn't mess with it, according to the former hospital superintendent. Nevertheless, the so-called Mendocino Plan resulted in at least informal coordination between hospital staff and social workers in placing mentally ill patients, he said.

Of Denny's theory that the Mendocino Plan lured Jones here, Klattle said: "He's got it all distorted. The Bui-eau of Social Work had been placing chronic patients throughout the state for years," including the mentally ill, the retarded and the elderly. What the hospital routinely did since before 1956 said Klatte, was to use "family care placements." The only unique facet of the hospital, he said, was perhaps the work his staff did with other agencies to set up "community-oriented" health services having "nothing to do with placement" of the mentally ill. Family care placements putting mentally ill but "harmless" people supported by federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in private homes where they received iKjard and care, he said. According to Klatte, the 20 to 45 care homes operated in Mendocino County while he was superintendent received a certain amount of each patient's SSI money as payment for the room, board and care they provided.

Prior to 1963, when SSI took over funding of the family care patients, the state paid for them. Now-defunct state social work bureaus were responsible for certifying homes and making sure patients received good care. The "hospital had no role as far as certification of a home was concerned," according to its former director. Klatte said the program "worked out very well." Patients were happier in care homes than in the hospital, and placing patients in homes cost the state less. At the same time, he said, "Patients got follow-up care in the community, so they weren't placed and forgotten." The hospital used a van to take patients around the county and nearby areas to visit potential care homes.

If a patient liked a home and seemed compatible with its operator, the hospital and bureau would make a placement. By the time Klatte left the hospital in 1969, its population had dropped from 3,000 to 1,100 and it was handling many acute drug and alcohol cases not requiring long-term hospitalization. The hospital closed in 1972. "I'm sure other states for many years have had ways of placing patients in the community. "As long as you've had a welfare system, there's been some way for disabled people to live in the community," Klatte said.

Klatte said he didn't know if patients were ever placed in homes owned by temple members. He said the temple never contacted him to have patients placed in its homes despite the fadt that Marceline Jones, whom he described as a "very good nurse," was on the hospital staff. He said he had heard of no more than six temple members on its staff, but there were "probably more." Of the temple members, "All the reports that I heard were very positive," said Klatte. "They didn't seem to proselytize." Tavern owner jailed for attempted murder HOPLAND The owner of The Keg cafe on Highway 101 was booked into county jail for attempted murder early this morning after he apparently mistook a sheriff's deputy for an intruder and shot at him, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office said today. According to reports, James Otis Peeler, 58, shot through the door of The Keg at deputy Anthony Craver, 39, of Ukiah, as Craver checked the cafe for intruders at about 2 a.m.

this morning. The sheriff's office had responded to a report of a broken window at the cafe earlier in the evening, and Oaver was reportedly investigating what appeared to be added damage to the building. When he approached the door of the building to see if there were signs of forced entry, a shot was fired from within, the sheriff's office said. The shot reportedly missed Oaver by about a foot. Deputies responding to reports of the incident found Peeler inside the cafe with a .22 caliber rifle, according to reports.

He was arrested and booked into county jail for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The sheriff's office said Peeler was apparently guarding the cafe against any further vandalism and mistook Oaver for an intruder. In an unrelated incident early this morning, a Forks resident narrowly escaped injury when a four-by-four piece of lumber was thrown through his bedroom window, the sheriff's office said. According to reports, George Neufeld of N. State Street was awakened by noises near his trailer home shortly before 1 a.m.

today. He got out of bed to investigate just as a four-by-four crashed through his bedroom window and landed on his bed. Looking outside, Neufeld reportedly found that three windows on his'van had been smashed. Total damage was estimated at $400. Chain saw taken Ernie Smith of Eastside-Calpella iSwd has reported the theft of a chain saw valued at $300, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office said today.

The theft is thought to have occurred from Smith's residence between Feb. 27 and March 5. Vatican City is an independent state under terms of a 1929 treaty with Italy. Army bomb squad helps police dispose of old explosives Klatte observed no conflict of interest between temple members on his staff and the hospital itself. That Jim Jones could have moved elsewhere but didn't, Denny contends, supports the argument that Jones moved to California because of Mendocino State Hospital.

"What corroborates his coming here is that he did not choose to go to Metropolitan State Hospital (Los Angeles County). He didn't choose to go to Napa State Hospital. He chose to come here." Mendocino County, said Denny, had a per capita care home bed rate "higher than any other county in California" after Jones' arrival. Family care homes in Mendocino County "was big business," according to Denny, not only for Rev. Jones and his followers, but for many others.

The "big business" simply got bigger with the addition of the temple's homes. Although unsure if hosital mental patients were placed in temple members' homes, Denny said: "I am led to believe in my assumptions that there were in fact (temple) homes that were receiving these kinds of people." Dr. Harry Hook, former assistant superintendent for psychiatric services at Mendocino State Hospital, said the hospital began "phasing down" its population in 1965 to deal with the hospital's inevitable closing. Growth of other county mental health programs was absorbing the hospital's work, he said. Now a staff psychiatrist for the Mendocino County Health Department, Hook nevertheless added, "It would surprise me to hear Jones heard (in Indiana) that here was a hospital phasing down with an awful lot of patients to be placed." (Klatte, according to Hook, launched his "vague concept" the Mendocino Plan in 1961 or However, Hook supported Denny's assumption that hospital patients were going to temple-operated homes.

He said Marceline Jones "certainly promoted and actually arranged" patient placements in temple homes. Hook's hunch is that five to 10 temple homes took patients from the hospital, although the hospital didn't know for sure what homes were affiliated with the temple. Said Hook: "The hospital to some extent was always isolated in its communications with the community," and, he believed, it never did know much about Jones. According to an ex-employee of the former "state Department of Mental Hygiene," temple care homes that received patients amounted to a "very, very small minority" less than a dozen of approximately 40 homes affiliated with many religions in the county and adjacent areas. The ex-employee still works for the NOW PLAYING LAST TIMES SATURDAY 2 EXClTlNfi FIRST-RUN HITS It challenges your courage, tests your manhooci and throws you into an arena of life and death.

A three-man Army bomb disposal squad from San FVancisco made a brief appearance in Ukiah Tuesday to help local police with a potentially sensitive problem. Sixteen sticks of old dynamite and fdur blasting caps, to be precise. The explosive had vertantly been left in a storage shed at 1260 S. State St. for approximately six months while their owner was out of town, police sai4.

The owner recently contacted law enforcement officials, fearing the old dynamite might be dangerous to move. The police agreed. Tbey called the Army. "It was Just something we weren't prepared to handle," explained Capt. Larry Maxson of the Ukiah police.

So Tuesday morning saw the arrival of the 87th Ordinance Detachment of the Presidio of San bomb squad. The team took a look at the explosives, said Maxson, and decided they were in "a potentially dangerous condition." The dynamite was not too dangerous to move, however, so the Army squad took it to the city dump on Low Gap Road. There, they burned "which is a way of disposing of dynamite without it exploding," according to Maxson. The Ukiah Fire Department stood by during the procedure. There were no mishaps.

Meanwhile, police said, the owner of the dynamite is under investigation for possible illegal mishandling of explosives. Biuce Lees spirit Hves Circle of InDn R. ST. DAVID CARRADINE. "ClRCUOflRON- -M CHRISTOPHER LEC COOPER I RODDV Mc0O EU VSMUACH BRUCE UE.

lAMES COBURN. STARTS AT I 2ND BIG NEWHITI PHArjMACY STARTS state and asked not to be named. He said the Mendocino Plan was unique in California, but it had nothing to do with placement. The source, who described Marceline Jones as having been "a very, very professional person, a very gentle person," doubted the hospital used her to place patients. He said it sent her out to look after patients already placed.

Denny said he was astounded to find Mendocino State Hospital operating "close to 50" family care homes. "A small community, a small social services department, a small sheriff's office, a small police department how do they handle that kind of action? "We didn't even have that many (homes) where I came from, a metropolitan area of Southern Cahfornia. That kind of program brings about severe problems in any community." "What's the scam?" Denny said he asked. Denny maintains that Jones moved to Redwood Valley not only for a piece of the family care home action, but also because of the potential money in residential care homes for the elderly and foster homes supervised by social services. Before Denny arrived to become social services director in 1969, his department corresponded with Indiana welfare officials about Jones, and from that correspondence Denny concluded Jones was the "greatest humanitarian con man ever to hit this valley." Denny said he confronted Jones in 1970 with the Indiana information, which showed, according to Denny, that Jones had set up a personal "clientele" to milk the Indiana welfare system.

Denny said he accused the temple leader of plotting to do "the same damn thing" here. Denny said Jones' reaction of "Oh my God; who told?" convinced him of Jones' ulterior motive. Denny said he told Jones: "I want you to know that if you fooling around with our department, I'm going to blow the whole scene on you." The Indiana correspondence, according to Denny, is "confidential" and has been turned over to the Mendocino County Grand Jury, which is investigating the temple. Although social services never signed a check payable to Peoples Temple, it licensed care homes for the elderly operated by Jones' followers homes that grossed an estimated half million dollars or more in ten years. How the money flowed will be considered tomorrow.

ACTIONS OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Tuesday: SOCIAL SERVICES Heard a report from Dennis Denny, social services director, that his administration budget will have a $90,000 surplus but that the change in food stamp regulations resulting from the Blind and Disabled Action Center suit is increasing the department's costs and will eliminate some of the surplus. COUNTY JUSTICE Approved application for a grant for a county justice subvention system program. Administered under the California Youth Authority, the grant would allow alternative sentencing programs for juveniles and adults at the local level. Additionally, it would provide a program for juvenile delinquents. VETERAN' BUILDINGS Referred to the government operations committee of the county board of supervisors the subject of whether veterans' building should be available for use by the public without imposing any more costs than what is necessary to sustain the building itself.

LAND Heard a report from Al Pierce, representative of the county Taxpayers' Lande Use Committee, that building in the county is up despite the subdivision moratorium. RECALL Certified the recall petition for Point Arena Justice Judge Lawrence Cohn. Supervisors asked the county elections department to set a date for the recall election. PHONE 462-6788 The state of Vermont got its name from the French explorers who first saw the region in 1609 and called it Verd-Mont (Green Mountain). CARPET EANING Quality Service at Reasonable Prices 485-8811 LAY-AWAY A Doughboy Pool! Free gift worth NO INTEREST OR CARRYING CHARGES A DEPOSIT HOLDS YOUR POOL TILL JUNE 1st 1979.

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