The Courier from Waterloo, Iowa • 12

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2001 Metro NE Iowa WATERLOOCEDAR FALLS COURIER Page B2 Mentally ill oaird i masses Hotelmotel tax grants latiesits bairn 1 Visitors Bureau Board down, list on hotel tax yse left in limbo The Waterloo Convention and of Directors has recommended next fiscal year from $100,000 hotel-motel tax. Organization Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center Upgrade sound system Hawkeye Community College Two-Cylinder Expo Waterloo Softball Association 1 slow-pitch tourney 1 Waterloo Community Playhouse Marketing and promotion $6,000 National Cattle Congress 2002 Fair $5,800 WaterlooCedar Falls Symphony Spring pops $5,600 Waterloo Chamber of Commerce My Waterloo Days $5,100 Waterloo Center for the Arts Advertising and promotion $5,000 Grout Museum TV marketing $4,500 Hawkeye Community College Community I Gift of Lights $4,200 Waterloo Center for the Arts Brochures and flyers $4,200 Grout Museum Billboard campaign $4,200 Grout Museum Old House Fair Tour $3,600 i Main Street Waterloo Downtown Unwrapped $3,400 Cedar Valley Youth Soccer Association Moonlight Classic $3,300 Cedar Valley Arboretum Children's Garden opening $1,700 Grout Museum Upgrade booth $1,100 Total $100,000 Source: Waterloo Convention and Visitors Bureau. County faces mental health conundrum By PAUL SISSON Courier Staff Writer WATERLOO Already faced with a decline in state funding, the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors will vote Wednesday on whether to pay for a judicial referee to continue presiding over mental health commitments. The supervisors are scheduled to vote on the matter at Wednesday's board meeting, scheduled for 9 a.m. at the courthouse.

The position was funded by the state, but the Iowa Legislature decided to end funding on Jan. 1. If the board votes to add the position, it will cost the county $16,500 through June. After that, the position's annual salary of $33,000 would be split between the county's mental health and community services budgets. Waterloo attorney Diane Larson currently serves as Black Hawk County's judicial referee.

She travels to local hospitals about five times a week to determine whether certain mental health or substance abuse patients should be committed into county and state treatment programs. The possible expense comes at a time when supervisors are looking for ways to shrink the county's payroll. Supervisor Maggie Stewart acknowledged that adding a judicial referee to the payroll takes the county in the wrong budgetary grant. Actually, the board of directors came up with only $71,700 in proposed grants after reviewing all the applications this year. Board members are urging the City Council, which has the final say in the grant awards, to use the $28,000 remaining balance to upgrade the failing sound system at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center.

"We've heard from several convention groups about the (faulty) sound system," Place said. "It's embarrassing to have the mayor addressing out-of-town visitors and the sound system cuts out. We just want to put our best face on for our visitors." The city received $750,000 in hotel-motel tax receipts last year. By ordinance, half the revenues are used to support the CVB operations, $100,000 is awarded in grants based on a recommendation of the CVB board, $150,000 is used for maintenance and repairs at the Five Sullivan- Brothers Convention Center and the remaining money is placed in a discretionary fund to be used throughout the year by the City Council on projects that support tourism. Some organizations received multiple grants this year, including the Grout Museum, which is recommended to receive four separate awards totaling $13,400.

The money would be used for the trade show upgrade, the Old House rv m.1 the following grants generated by the Project Grant $28,300 $7,300 State $6,700 COURIER Graphic annual fair, My Waterloo Days, HCC's Community Gift of Lights, and Main Street Waterloo's "Downtown Unwrapped," $3,400. Two sporting events were recommended for grants: the State Slo-Pitch Softball Tournament hosted by the Waterloo Softball Association, and the Cedar Valley Youth Soccer Association's "Moonlight Classic," $3,300. No date has been set for the City Council to vote on the CVB's proposed grant awards. "We're still overprogrammed by $100 million," which means a restoration of funding for the 63 widening is probably not an immediate priority However, Larsen encouraged local officials to remain involved in the state road planning process and participate in the next round of public hearings for the DOT'S revised five-year plan a year from now. The elimination of the 63 widening does not affect construction of the Highway 63 bypass around New Hampton, which is under construction.

"Our fear is when that bypass is done, it's going to put even more pressure on that road between (Highways) 3 and 346," Blanshan said. "There seems to be a large percentage of truck traffic, and I don't think that's going to decrease." About 10 years ago, Highway 63 was considered as a possible Northeast Iowa route for the Avenue of the Saints from St. Louis to St. Paul, Minn. A route that uses portions of Interstate 380, U.S.

Highways 218 and 18 and Interstate 35 was chosen instead. But Highway 63 remains a heavily used route for motorists traveling between Waterloo and Rochester, and beyond to the Twin Cities. Cuts hurt chance at last refuge. bTmHI hemenway-forbes Courier Staff Writer WATERLOO A combination of mental and physical illness has left a number of elderly Iowans with only one place to go. But state budget cuts have caused that place to turn them away The Clarinda Treatment Complex Geropsychiatric Program serves mentally ill patients who also have serious medical conditions.

It is the only program of its kind in the state. The 4.3 percent across-the-board budget cut ordered by Gov. Tom Vilsack meant a loss of $349,212 to the Clarinda psychiatric program, forcing the facility to reduce the number of patients it serves from 60 to 45. "That's a lot of money," said Mark Lund, superintendent of the Clarinda complex. "We could serve a lot more people with that." The cuts don't bode well for the 47 patients on the waiting list to get into the program.

"We have two patients here who have nowhere to go," said Amy Hylton, admissions coordinator for Parkview Nursing and Rehab. The two Parkview patients have been on the Clarinda facility's waiting list for more than two months. There's no telling how much longer they'll have to wait. One of the Parkview patients has been court-committed to a mental health facility and the other has been in the psychiatric unit of a local hospital for more than a week and will be sent back to Parkview because there's "nothing more they can do to treat her," Hylton said. Hylton said Parkview and other nursing homes are ill-equipped to handle these patients.

While they are able to care for the patients' medical needs, they are not set up to deal with mental illness. "The best we can do is attempt to distract them and isolate them if they're becoming aggressive," Hylton said. "We keep a very close eye on them to protect the other residents. Nursing homes don't have psychiatric units." By contrast, mental health hospitals such as the Mental Health Institute in Independence are designed specifically for patients with mental illness, but cannot treat those with serious medical problems. "If a patient doesn't need intense medical or skilled nursing care, then admission here would be appropriate," said Dr.

Bhasker Dave, MHI superintendent. "But if somebody is on oxygen or is not ambulatory or needs to be tube fed, those patients could not be served here. We are here to serve patients nobody else can treat, but it's limited to psychiatric care." MHI used to have a geropsychiatric program but it was discontinued in 1991 when the state reorganized and consolidated the four state mental health institutions, Dave noted. "It's kind of a gut-wrenching situation for everybody" said Lund. "I don't know anybody in the health care area that wouldn't like to provide more levels of care for people" Lund said a University of Iowa study revealed there are more than 250 Iowans who meet the clinical criteria for admission to the Clarinda geropsychiatric program.

"These are people who have serious psychiatric diagnoses and also very complicated medical conditions," he said. "These are people who cannot be on their own." Prospective patients are screened before they enter the program to make certain they can't be treated at any other facility "This (waiting) list we have represents those people who at this time are eligible (for admission). Most have had 14 to 17 other facilities that have tried to take care of them," Lund said. "We commonly refer to them as the nowhere-to-go population." Lund predicts the situation will grow worse, and the waiting By TIM JAMISON Courier Staff Writer WATERLOO The city's arts, cultural and sporting attractions have been tapped to get a financial boost next year from the city's hotel-motel tax. The Waterloo Convention and Visitors Bureau's board of directors last week made its annual recommendation to the City Council on how some $100,000 generated by the 7 percent surtax on hotel stays should be doled out in grants to a list of applicants.

The recommendations, which are for the fiscal year beginning next July 1, are based heavily on the organizations' abilities to bring visitors to town from outside of the area, helping fuel the hotel-motel tax receipts. "When we rewrote this grant application two years ago, we established criteria like overnight stays," said Martha Place, CVB executive director. "Is it a new idea? Is it a sound project? And does the organization (applying for the grant) have experience in dealing with grants?" While individual grants have a $7,500 cap, no organization received the full amount. The annual Two-Cylinder Club exposition at Hawkeye Community College topped the list at $7,300, while a $1,100 award to upgrade the Grout Museum's trade show exhibit was the smallest recommended Zappa will stand trial By The Associated Press and Courier Staff CHARLES CITY A man who led authorities last spring on a month-long, multi-state manhunt that began in Floyd County was ruled competent Friday to stand trial in federal court for kidnapping a 17-year-old Kearney, gill U.S. Magistrate David Piester in Lincoln, ruled after an examination of Anthony Steven Wright at a federal medical center for prisoners in Missouri.

Wright, also known as Anthony Zappa, is accused of abducting high school honor student Anne Sluti in the parking lot of a Kearney mall April 6 and holding her hostage for six days while traveling nearly 1,000 miles. He was arrested April 12 after a 10-hour standoff at a cabin near Rollins, Mont. Authorities credited Sluti with helping negotiate her captor's surrender and her own release. Wright, 29, of Minneapolis, is charged with kidnapping and using a gun while committing a felony Both charges are punishable by life in prison. Trial was set for May 6.

Prior to the kidnapping, Zappa had been wanted on charges including assault, theft and gun violations in Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Louisiana. Zappa had eluded authorities since February for failing to appear in Minnesota on a burglary charge. At one point police closed the nation's largest mall, Mall of America in Bloomington, after he was spotted there. Zappa escaped five bounty hunters March 14 at a rural Charles City home. He allegedly wounded one of the bounty hunters during a shoot-out and led them and Floyd County deputies on a 12-hour chase before driving his car into a ditch.

Zappa escaped on foot and took a Cadillac from another rural home. Zappa fled to. Minnesota. Floyd County officials had indicated that Zappa would face charges here of second-degree theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm, but noted he would face more serious charges in other jurisdictions before coming to Iowa, Fair and Tour and marketing efforts. Another proposed multiple grant recipient is the Waterloo Center for the Arts, which would receive $9,200 for two separate marketing proposals.

The Waterloo Community Playhouse is slated to get $6,000 for its marketing budget, while the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra is in line for $5,600 for its Spring Pops concert. Several annual events also were tapped for funding, including the National Cattle Congress Getting creamed i The proposed widening of this stretch of U.S. Highway 63 has been dropped from the state's 5-year construction plan. I New Hampton jRcMER 63; 63. Waterloo COURIER Graphic sion had to make adjustments to its five-year plan.

Local DOT planner Rod Larsen said the state needed to slash $300 million from the five-year plan. He said $200 million was cut. GREG BROWN Courier Staff Photographer Katie Bowers, left, got to shove a cream pie in the face of Assistant Principal Peg Frey on Friday afternoon at Hoover Middle School. Students reached their goal In a canned food drive, and Frey and two other faculty members took pies in the face at an assembly. Local officials keep eye on stalled Highway 63 project direction.

I "What are we going to dor she asked. The bottom line is that if these services are going to be used, somebody has to pay for them." Black Hawk County's mental health department pays for mental health and substance abuse patients' hospital stays while they await a commitment hearing. So, by default, the county must find some way of determining which patients should be committed. Supervisors find themselves faced with two options. They can simply send a sheriff's deputy to transport each patient from the hospital to the courthouse for a commitment hearing before a district judge.

Or, the county can pay Larson to continue doing her job. The county's Mental Health Planning Council studied both options and found it would be cheaper to hire Larson. She conducted nearly 300 hearings last year. If the county paid a deputy to accompany each of those patients for two hours, the costs would balloon quickly The county also could get stuck paying for longer hospital stays for patients awaiting a commitment hearing in district court. Larson is on call 24 hours a day and can conduct a hearing within 48 hours of hospitalization.

But if the district court system were forced to hold the hearings, a judge would only be available twice a week. Faced with two undesirable choices, Stewart said she supports hiring Larson. "It's a position we need to fill, and it really is the cheapest way to go," Stewart said. list will grow longer as Iowa's baby boomer population ages. "The future is there's going to be a greater need for these kind of services in Iowa," he said.

"But it's not a high enough priority in our state It's a question of values where the money goes." By PAT KINNEY Courier Business Editor WATERLOO Local, road planners want to make sure the Iowa Department of Transportation doesn't forget about widening U.S. Highway 63 in Bremer and Chickasaw counties, even though the project has been dropped from the state's five-year plan. "That's a project that's been in our program a long time," and local officials need to keep pressure on the state to get it done, said Kevin Blanshan, senior director of transportation with the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments. "If some revenues come in to do additional projects, we would expect that would be one of the top ones," Blanshan said. He made his comments at Thursday's meeting of the Iowa Northland Regional Transportation Authority a multi-county group of Northeast Iowa elected officials and transportation planners.

The widening of Highway 63 from Iowa Highway 3 in Bremer County to the Iowa Highway 346 at the south end of New Hampton bypass was one of the projects left on the cutting floor when the Iowa Transportation Commis-.