Speak No Evil
Maine DHHS Commissioner Brenda Harvey gags parents while taking their children -- making it much easier for the Department of Health and Human Services to operate with no scrutiny and no oversight.
Apologizing for Past while Ignoring the Present
The resolution of apology to Native Americans of Kansas speaks of injustices in the past tense. It references past indignities and apologizes "for all action which brought death, harm, humiliation and suffering to the native peoples...."
It speaks of wrongdoing as actions discontinued, as if Kansans have moved on and embraced a new mindset while expressing a willingness to shoulder responsibility for regrettable deeds done and gone. The resolution speaks of past transgressions as if Kansan powers-that-be would never again stoop to such levels of abuse and disregard..... "as if these practices have ended -- as if they are no longer occurring in Kansas," says Kansas Citizens for Change President Vickie Burris.
Introduced four years ago by U S Senator Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, and newly introduced in the Kansas state legislature in February of 2008 by Kansas state Senator Julia Lynn (R), the resolution of apology seeks "to acknowledge the history of official actions, the wrongful passage of statutes, policies and broken treaties against all native peoples and to extend an apology to them on behalf of the state of Kansas....." Lynn's resolution also urges Congress to finally approve Brownback's apology at the federal level.
But for Vickie Burris, the string of transgressions has not ended -- not the humiliations to which Lynn refers, not the covenant breaking and deceptions and certainly not the forcible removal and institutionalization of Indian children from their families to be assimilated into mainstream culture.
Burris is seeking not only recognition of that reality but an official redress of serious ongoing violations of the law against Native Americans and other citizens of Kansas.
Following is both Senator Lynn's Resolution of Apology and the response by Vickie Burris of Kansas Citizens for Change. (terrilyn simpson)
A Resolution of Apology to the Native Americans of Kansas
Kansas Senate Concurrent Resolution No 1617
Presented by Kansas Senator Julia Lynn
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION supporting a United States congressional apology to Native Americans and offering an apology to native peoples on behalf of the state of Kansas.
WHEREAS, It is time to acknowledge the history of official actions, the wrongful passage of statutes, policies and broken treaties against all native peoples and to extend an apology to them on behalf of the state of Kansas; and
WHEREAS, The founders of the republic, America in its infancy, expressed their desire for a just relationship with the Indian tribes; and
WHEREAS, Indian tribes provided assistance to help young America grow; and
WHEREAS, Native peoples and non-native settlers engaged in numerous armed conflicts; and
WHEREAS, The state of Kansas violated many of the treaties ratified by congress; and
WHEREAS, The state of Kansas should have addressed broken treaties and many ill-conceived federal policies that followed, such as extermination, termination, forced removal and relocation, the outlawing of traditional religions, and destruction of sacred places; and
WHEREAS, The state of Kansas forced Indian tribes and their citizens to move away from their traditional homelands; and
WHEREAS, Many native peoples suffered during forced removal, including the trail of tears and during massacres in western Kansas; and
WHEREAS, The state of Kansas endeavored to assimilate the natives into the non-native culture by the forcible removal of native children from their families to boarding schools where their native practices and languages were degraded and forbidden; and
WHEREAS, Native peoples are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness: Now, therefore,
Be it resolved by the Senate of the State of Kansas, the House of Representatives concurring therein: That the state of Kansas:
1) Recognizes the special legal and political relationship the Indian tribes have with Kansas and the solemn covenant with the land we share;
2) Commends and honors native peoples for the years they lived on the land and produced;
3) Acknowledges years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies and the breaking of covenants by the government regarding Indian tribes;
4) Repents of covenant breaking, deceptions and atrocities committed against the native peoples in the name of the state of Kansas and their citizens;
5) Sincerely apologizes for all action which brought death, harm, humiliation and suffering to the native peoples;
6) Acknowledges the offenses of the state of Kansas against the Indian tribes in order to bring healing to this land by providing a proper foundation for reconciliation between Kansas and the Indian tribes; and
7) Desires to build, strengthen and support all endeavors to maintain, encourage and foster a relationship of genuine respect, peace, fellowship and prosperity to all of the peoples of Kansas.
Be it further resolved: That nothing in this resolution authorizes any claim against the United States or Kansas or their citizens or serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States or Kansas or their citizens.
In Response to Senator Lynn's Resolution of Apology
from the Mother of a Native American Child
by Vickie Burris
In her resolution of apology to the American Indians of Kansas, state Senator Julia Lynn (R) references the breaking of treaties with tribes, forcing American Indians from their homelands and removing Indian children from families in an effort to assimilate them into mainstream culture, as if these practices have ended -- as if they are no longer occurring in Kansas.
Senator Lynn includes a disclaimer that her resolution "can't be used to authorize any claim against the United States or Kansas."
I encourage Senator Lynn to educate herself as to the continued and ongoing practices against Native Americans that occur daily in Kansas and throughout the United States.
My own child was removed by the State of Kansas from a hospital where I had admitted her for care. She was not removed for neglect or abuse (a requirement in Kansas for removal), but because my health insurance benefits had run out and I was a single parent. When I asked for temporary medical assistance for my child I was rewarded with the loss of physical custody of her. My daughter was held hostage by the State of Kansas for 35 months - during 27 of those months we were denied access to information about her condition or her whereabouts.
My child is an enrolled member of a federally recognized Native American tribe; her documentation includes a Certificate of Indian Blood. In our case, both state and federal statutes, as well as the Indian Child Welfare Act were violated.
What is the Indian Child Welfare Act? (http://www.nicwa.org/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act)
ICWA is a federal law that seeks to keep American Indian children with American Indian families. Congress passed ICWA in 1978 in response to the alarmingly high number of Indian children being removed from their homes by both public and private agencies. The intent of Congress under ICWA was to "protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families" (25 U.S.C. § 1902). ICWA sets federal requirements that apply to state child custody proceedings involving an Indian child who is a member of or eligible for membership in a federally recognized tribe.
Our family rode the Kansas roller coaster of nightmares for 35 months. We are forever changed as a result of the actions of the state agencies and the judicial system of Kansas against our family.
Our tribe filed Motions to Intervene not once but twice in our case. These motions were ignored by members of the Kansas judicial system. Family members requested an Interstate Compact (ICPC) to have my child placed with Native American relatives. The ICPC was squelched when a state contracted social worker falsified information in response to the ICPC request. (I'd received a phone call from this worker informing me that the ICPC was complete and assuring me my child would be placed with family within the week. Imagine our shock when we went to court days later and this same worker presented a report to the court with erroneous, maligning and contradictory information regarding the ICPC placement and no acknowledgment of the verbal reassurance she'd offered days previous.)
Our case -- and a number of other cases -- have been reviewed and investigated by Kansas Legislative Post Audit. The Legislative Post Audit ultimately concluded that criminal activity had occurred in a number of cases but to date, no further action has been taken. No official has been prosecuted.
I ask Senator Lynn if she is aware that the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, which handles the state foster care system, has entered into "agreements" with three of the four Native American Tribes of Kansas to remove only a "percentage" of their children. This is criminal in my opinion, reflecting no apologetic feelings towards the Native Americans of this state. It is yet another effort to remove Indian children from their families. The agreement indicates additional violations of state and federal statues and of ICWA.
My case is not isolated or special. Ours is not the only family destroyed by the efforts of Kansas social service agencies and the state judicial system. Since the time of my child's removal and incarceration I have received numerous e-mails, letters and phone calls from Native Americans who have found their family victims of these same efforts. As recently as last month, I received a phone call from a Native American family member in Kansas who was suffering these same injustices -- another little Indian girl removed from her family, placed with strangers who are non-Native American -- another child placed far, far away from all things familiar. It is another example in an ongoing string of violations -- again of both state and federal statutes and of ICWA. It is another injustice against Native American families.
I encourage legislators to rethink Senator Lynn's resolution efforts and to redirect their energies toward stopping the ongoing abuses against not only Native American families but all Kansas families. The rate of removal of children from their families, warehoused in non-kinship, out-of-home placement has skyrocketed in Kansas. Kansas is quickly becoming known and recognized across the nation as the Child Removal Capital. Will this wanton and reckless disregard for the state and federal statutes continue to occur? Will it escalate to even higher proportions? Will this be our Kansas legacy?
Vickie L. Burris is president of the Wichita, Kansas organization Citizens For Change. For further information, go to www.citizens-for-change.org or call (316) 945-0858.
Call to Accountability
A letter to Maine State Representative Scott Lansley
February 2, 2008
Dear Representative Lansley:
Per our recent phone conversation, I'm sending you copies of my two
investigative articles on the Logan Marr case and the Maine Department of
Human Services -- now the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Since questions were recently raised among legislators serving on the
judiciary committee regarding who they would consider a legitimate
journalist, let me first briefly highlight my credentials. I have been a
journalist in Maine for over 20 years and have worked as both a reporter
and an editor for a number of Maine newspapers and magazines. I have
received three investigative reporting awards from the Maine Press
Association........ I also received the annual journalism award from the
Maine Labor Group on Health. As editor of the Bucksport Free Press, I
broke and extensively covered the story of the deaths and other chemical
exposure cases of workers at the Champion Paper Mill in Bucksport. During
that coverage, shortly after I received warnings regarding my personal
safety, 19 windows were smashed in my office which was additionally
vandalized. I continued my Champion coverage which earned me the 1998 Paul
Newman First Amendment Award, formally known as the PEN American/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.
Regarding the articles referenced, I have marked a section in my article The DHS Fix, published in 2005, which specifically highlights the
role of Dr. Lawrence Ricci who heads both the Spurwink Center for Child Abuse and the
Maine State Fatality and Serious Injury Review Panel. In addition, Ricci
appears as a paid expert witness in hundreds of cases on behalf of the
State of Maine in cases alleging child abuse. As my article notes, when
Ricci was asked by an attorney during a court hearing a number of years
ago "how many times he had testified in favor of parents in the 600-plus
cases in which he claimed at the time to have been the expert witness,
Ricci, according to the attorney, said he did not ever remember testifying
against the state in favor of a parent."
As the article reveals (on page 8), the Maine Fatality Review Panel "is
mandated by federal law to publicly report on the death of any child who
dies in foster care." To this day the committee, still headed by Ricci --
whose agency continues to receive millions of dollars from the state of
Maine -- has failed to comply.
While Ricci has not revealed his rationale for ignoring the federal
mandate, his reasons may be found in a disturbing detail of the Logan Marr
case. Dr. Lawrence Ricci was involved in the Logan Marr case.
As revealed in The DHS Fix, Logan Marr was evaluated by the Spurwink
Center for Child Abuse which attempted to substantiate vague DHS claims
against Logan's mother. The Spurwink grilling of Logan had ultimately to
concede there was no evidence or indication that Logan had ever been
abused by her mother. Dr. Lawrence Ricci signed the evaluation.
Dr. Ricci, however, did not recommend that Logan be reunited with her
mother. Above the doctor's signature is the chilling conclusion "As Logan
is not identified on the basis of this interview as having experienced any
form of abuse, no recommendations are made on that basis. However, it is
recommended that Logan receive mental health treatment to cope with the
separation from her biological mother." (page 9, The DHS Fix)
Logan Marr remained in the protective custody of Maine DHS. Just months
after Dr. Ricci signed the evaluation, Logan Marr was killed in DHS
custody.
There has been no public disclosure of Ricci's paid involvement in the
events which preceded the death of five-year-old Logan. Since Ricci, as
head of the Maine State Fatality and Serious Injury Review Panel, did not
reveal his role and did not recuse himself from committee involvement at a
time when it was mandated to investigate the state's role in the events
which resulted in the torture death of five-year-old Logan, Ricci, if he'd
done his job, would not only have been investigating state officials who
pay him for his expertise. Ricci would have been investigating himself. He
apparently did nothing.
Following Logan's death, Maine DHS officials conducted a public smear
campaign against Logan's young mother. No official who knew the truth came
to her defense.
I have a couple of questions, Representative Lansley. First, the
legislative OPEGA committee (Office of Program Evaluation & Government
Accountability) was slated to investigate the dealings between Maine DHHS
and the Spurwink Center for Child Abuse which Ricci still heads. I was
recently told, in response to an inquiry, that the specific investigation
of Spurwink, which received, at last review, approximately $45 to $50
million per year from the state of Maine, has been scrapped. Since you
serve on OPEGA, I am asking if you can shed some light on this
development.
Secondly, I have asked repeatedly since writing and publishing the
investigative articles on the Logan Marr case and the Maine child
protective system:
There have been only a small number of legislators who have demonstrated a willingness to raise some difficult questions regarding the troubling and questionable activities of both state officials and the individuals and agencies they're paying with taxpayer dollars. You appear to be one of those legislators. I appeal to you to raise these questions and to finally demand answers.
I hope that the brief outline of my credentials as a journalist assures other legislators and state officials that I will not walk away from these questions until they are answered -- completely and legitimately.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Terrilyn Simpson
Editor/Publisher
Common Sense Independent
Smirkin' 'Bout the SmokeTax
by Terrilyn Simpson
Terry Hayes is a big woman. That would not ordinarily be an issue pertinent to noting regarding a state legislator, but Maine Representative Terry Hayes (D-Buckfield) has indicated if she can't outlaw the bad and unhealthful habits of the state's citizenry, she'll make it too expensive to have them -- and add to the state coffers to boot.
Hayes is being selectively discriminatory, however.
Hayes was talking about cigarettes recently -- specifically about adding an additional dollar a pack tax to cigarettes, on top of the current two dollars a pack tax, so that the stupid people of the state who smoke will no longer be able to afford to do so -- as proposed in LD 499 by Governor John Baldacci.
Apparently giddy at the prospect of an opportunity to legislate the personal habits of constituents, Hayes was just 'asmirkin' and 'atwitterin'. She scoffed at the idea that smokers would cross the state line into New Hampshire where the tax on cigarettes is just 80 cents a pack. Nonsense. She shrugged off concerns of storeowners that they couldn't take another hit in a state whose bureaucracy had been kicking small business owners below the belt harder than ever since the first inauguration of the current governor.
Hayes' high-handed stance made one sit up and take notice. She held up a small piece of paper by one corner as if it were a square of soiled toilet tissue. It was an informational leaflet handed her by a storeowner, she noted offhandedly. Her smug attitude and gleeful remarks suggested amusement that the guy -- a constituent -- was foolish enough to think she'd care if he, and other small storeowners, are forced to lock up and go away because they'll have no way to replace the cigarette portion of store revenue if the cigarette tax increase passes. "I have no problem with that," she announced. She appeared unfazed that the increase would make Maine's tax the highest in the country.
Never mind if customers who drop by to pick up a pack and typically add a handful of convenience store incidentals cease the whole ritual. Ignore the "floor tax" which will almost immediately hit store owners, meaning they'll have to pay the increased tax upfront on all cigarettes already in their store inventory. It can mean thousands of dollars instantly due the state for the proprietor of even a small store.
Whatever it takes to help the people, nodded Hayes knowingly. Private enterprise is not, after all, likely to be Hayes' strong point. Though publicly a legislator of the people, privately Hayes' professional income is derived from a state bureaucratic source. Working as a guardian ad litem -- to determine the fate of children in custody and child protective battles -- Hayes is professionally dependent on the largesse of the Maine court system and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. Her outspoken support for the cigarette tax would undoubtedly enhance her position with the latter.
The cavalier attitude exhibited toward the potential failure of small business enterprises was no less pronounced when it came to trotting out figures to support her stance. When it was pointed out during the discussion that any one dollar a pack increase would result in the levying of an additional five cents, Hayes voiced disagreement. But when it was pointed out that ten cents sales tax is currently charged on the two dollar excise tax already levied on each pack, and that the practice would certainly continue with another one dollar increase, Hayes quickly changed the subject and went on to enthusiastically pronounce that well, anyway........ that, umph...... that something has to be done about the $12 in health costs currently incurred by Maine for each pack of cigarettes consumed by Maine smokers. She cited no source for the figure which is estimated at significantly lower amounts by officials with more expertise -- though there seems to be disparity even in those quarters.
For instance, approximately a year and a half ago, Maine Public Health Director Dora Mills cited the healthcare toll to the state at $8 a pack while recently, Maine Medical Associations executive vice president, Gordon Smith, was quoted as giving a $7 a pack figure for medical costs.
Though the citizens of the state still technically possess the legal right to smoke, acknowledged Hayes, she could help move the ability to exercise that right toward a financial impossibility -- until she and cohorts find a way to ban smokes from the state completely. Just make 'em too expensive for anyone to get, she chortled.
What a concept -- a legislator on a mission to save the people of the state from their own bad judgment -- as determined by Hayes and political allies -- which leads to the topic of state girth. In Maine, big has become as bad as smoke.
A study released in 2005 by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University claimed that Maine has the highest obesity rate in New England, with 59 percent of adults overweight or obese, and 15 percent of Maine's youth categorized likewise. Subsequently, according to the study, in 2003, Maine spent $273 per person on obesity related costs -- the 17th highest amount in the US.
The study referenced a number of potential steps to battle the Maine bulge. It concluded, however, that "the solution to Maine's obesity problem lies with self-discipline on the part of its residents rather than a costly legislative program that cannot guarantee results."
The conclusion would not, of course, be in keeping with the Hayes approach of overriding the rights of the individual to allow them to be cared for by bureaucrats and politicians. Which brings the issue back to the activism theorizing of Representative Hayes. Using her logic, why not tax the obese?
If you're overweight, and at risk for a whole bunch of health problems, it's obvious that you're becoming a burden to the state, that you don't need all the food you're eating and that it's up to the state to take care of you. There's way more overweight people in the state than smokers even -- think of the revenue. Just establish the ideal weight for all the heights of all the citizenry, notify the zealots at the Department of Health and Human Services to polish up their policing helmets and launch a new for-the-good-of-the-citizenry awareness campaign and then institute a SYSTEM.
If you weigh too much, your food will be taxed. Period. Non-complying grocers, cashiers and chubby snack food junkies will be fined -- big time.
There could be huge weigh-in rooms at DHHS offices all around the state. It would likely even provide some opportunities to snag some kids from parents whove allowed their offspring too many trips to the trough.
So step up to the scales, Representative Hayes -- your constituents are worried about you and want to save you from yourself -- before the taxpayers end up having to pick up the tab for your over-consumption.
copyright © 2007 No portion of this article may be reproduced in any form without permission from the editor
Newspaper Indicts Child Protective Practices
by Terrilyn Simpson
Award winning journalist Terrilyn Simpson launched Common Sense Independent with a 28-page indictment of a state-run child protective program. Using the case of five-year-old Logan Marr as a window into systemic child protective practices, Simpson reveals the arrogance and insensitivity of state officials who failed to intervene in the documented and ongoing abuse of Logan by her foster mother, a veteran Maine Department of Human Services caseworker who ultimately killed the child.
Simpson dedicates the entire 28-page run of the first edition of Common Sense Independent to Logan's Truth, which recounts the results of a year long investigation into the case. One reader wrote that Simpson had "uncovered a wealth of crucial detail about the Logan Marr case..." and that the investigation "mined document after document until the Maine Department of Human Services wound up indicting itself."
Logan's Truth is indicative of the caliber of coverage -- on a range of issues -- to be presented in upcoming issues of Common Sense.
Simpson has earned regional and national attention for her journalism. She's won several awards for investigative journalism and in 1998 received the Paul Newman First Amendment Award, formally known as the PEN American/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, for her extensive and tenacious investigation into chemical injuries suffered by workers at a Maine paper mill.
Posturing for profit
by Terrilyn Simpson
A publicly reputable Maine therapist, whose curriculum vitae included work at one of the largest counseling businesses in the state, once told me she believed most fathers wanted to sexually abuse their daughters. She specialized in sexual abuse evaluation of victims, was undeterred by lack of evidence and she testified at court hearings against fathers. She was smart, articulate, convincing and, if you were not a father, extremely likable. And I am convinced that in at least one case which I followed and in which this therapist played a key role, that she was likely wrong. I am equally convinced that she did not care. It was a case in which hard evidence was non-existent, a case fueled by ex-spousal retaliation and likely a touch of instability -- a case overtaken by the egos and theories of self-proclaimed experts whose resumes were built on the number of cases in which they'd previously proclaimed themselves experts.
This is the atmosphere into which Jessica's Law has been introduced. It's made great air time, talk time, ego time, soapbox center stage look-at-listen-to-me-time. And because it's "for the children" it's made targets out of anyone who didn't join the horde as fast as their non-thinking could jockey them into position.
I've heard more than once the hue and cry for nailing and locking up for at least a quarter of a lifetime -- if not castrating and using as loosed prey in some Joseph Conrad like hunt in outback Maine -- anyone who might lay a deviant finger on a defenseless child. What has never been mentioned is who determines who the deviants are -- who determines what, if any, damage has been done -- say if the child is four, or five, or three or two or six -- or even older -- and scared by being ripped away from his or her parents by strangers with a penchant for playing with anatomically correct dolls.......... strangers whose livelihoods, reputations, power bases and funding depend on finding maybe victims and exposing maybe victimizers. Four-year-olds may not lie -- though that in itself is an unlikely truth -- but they can certainly imagine after being subjected to the power of expert suggestion during lengthy funtime demonstrations. And as one of the state's leading experts has been heard to opine, 'Lack of evidence does not mean lack of guilt.'
In one case I've been following, the entire case against a stepfather has been built on what one child allegedly said she heard another child describe as a motion the stepfather may have made once -- in a crowded and possibly darkened car. The child who is the alleged victim denies the incident. When the caseworker's documentation was called into question, she disclosed that her only piece of evidence -- the tape of the interviews with the children -- had been lost, misplaced, disappeared....... Disappeared interview tapes of alleged child victims have become a hallmark of Maine DHHS caseworkers. These are the very same caseworkers who often initiate sexual abuse charges by closeting themselves away behind locked doors with children who have been reported -- sometimes by a well-intentioned adult, sometimes by a retaliatory parent in the middle of an acrimonious break-up and sometimes by a plumb nutcase. Sometimes the cases are initiated by someone who sees someone else's child and figures they'd like to take them home and make them their own. Sometimes it works.
Following the publication of my lengthy investigative article on the death of foster child Logan Marr, I was contacted by a woman who was announcing that she, with a friend, was establishing an organization intended to lead to the identification of abused children. She had been prompted to do so by her work advocating for one child -- who she had babysat for and who she had wanted to keep. She knew, she said, that the child was being sexually abused -- in that case, by the mother. The abuse reporter was, she confided, more knowledgeable than most because she was the daughter of a doctor. The case she had contacted me about hinged on two key pieces of evidence, she said -- she had once witnessed the child, who was approximately two or three at the time, reach into his mother's blouse while she was holding him and touched her in a place 'where only men should be touching her,' according to the reporter. And the child had suffered from a yeast infection at the same time as the mother. (The reporter did not mention whether the two, mother and child, might for instance, have been on antibiotics at the time, or varied other potential explanations.) The woman was successful in getting DHS to open a case against the mother. She was not successful in getting custody of the child -- thus her campaign to improve the system.
Currently, in femme Nazi Augusta -- where male bashing, parent bashing and family bashing have become high sport -- the likelihood that integrity of due process will supersede self-serving emotionalism and grandstanding is more than dubious. Where funding is concerned, one child in foster care is worth many times more than numerous left with family. And what easier way to lay claim to a child than to proclaim suspicion of sexual abuse. Panic ensues. Few, if any, crimes are considered more odious.
Dr. Lawrence R. Ricci, a pediatrician and board-certified emergency physician, is called upon by the state to testify in hundreds of court cases where parental child abuse is alleged. According to one attorney who cross examined Ricci on the stand, the doctor allegedly could not recall a single case out of the hundreds in which he'd appeared where he'd testified on behalf of a parent. It's a lucrative stance.
Ricci has positioned himself at the helm of an agency with a seemingly unlimited potential for making money on suspected child abuse, especially sexual abuse. As Executive Director for the Spurwink Center for Child Abuse, Ricci has claimed the sexual abuse of children as a primary area of expertise. The problem is that Ricci's self-proclaimed expertise seems to be built on the number of times he's self determined he's the expert based on his seemingly endless enthusiasm to side with the state.
It was Ricci's signature on the evaluation of foster child Logan Marr which helped keep her in foster care -- to treat her for the trauma of being taken away from her mother by the state after the Spurwink evaluator had failed to coerce Logan into agreeing that anyone had been physically inappropriate with her. A few months later, the five-year-old was killed by her foster mother. At that point, Ricci, who also headed the state panel charged with investigating the state's handling of the Logan Marr case, failed to reveal his own conflict of interest and failed to conduct the mandated investigation. He then participated in committee meetings to restructure the Department of Human Services, which was subsequently enlarged to the advantage of care providers such as Spurwink. During that process, Ricci reportedly tried to have criticism of the department's child protective methods stricken from the minutes of meetings.
Ricci has been amply awarded. In 2005, the state of Maine paid Spurwink $45,312,723.32.
Though Spurwink's relationship with DHHS is slated to be the subject of investigation by the Maine legislative oversight committee OPEGA (Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability), hundreds of other agencies vying to follow in Spurwink's profitable footprints are not. And even hoping for the intensive probe needed to accurately assess Spurwink's tactics is unduly optimistic given the current climate in Augusta.
It is into this cauldron of hyper-vigilant, self-serving conjecture that those accused of child sex abuse will be dropped if Jessica's law is initiated. It is professionals like Ricci, and agencies such as Spurwink, which will benefit from the fallout. Standing before the stacked resources of the state, the accused, many with court appointed attorneys, will likely be ready to cut any deal dangled before them to avoid the 25-year incarceration mandated by Jessica's law. Whether one is guilty or not will have little bearing -- it'll be a bit like having our own Gulag. But after all, it's for the children......
Logan's Truth
by Terrilyn Simpson
On February 4, 2001 the Maine Department of Human Services finally let five-year-old Logan Marr go home to her mother.
Christy Baker Repoza read her daughter her favorite story -- "Pooh Gets Stuck." She combed her long, dark hair and dressed her in her best dress. And then she laid her in her casket.
The Maine Department of Human Services sent Logan Marr home dead.
To read this article in its entirely, go to:
http://www.asmainegoes.com/loganstruth_intro.htm
The DHS Fix
by Terrilyn Simpson
On May 6, 2004, Maine Governor John E. Baldacci signed into law LD 1913, "An Act to Establish the Department of Health and Human Services," merging the Department of Human Services with the Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services. The reorganization was touted by state officials as an answer to an outcry against Maine DHS following the death of foster child Logan Marr and a crescendo of complaints that DHS officials often ignored the law when taking children away from their families. However, the very origin of the merger proposal, designed by officials who, in many instances, would have come under scrutiny had the hundreds of complaints been heeded, suggests a distraction rather than a solution, an action more likely intended to circumvent any real reform or investigation.
It was an awful moment. Karen Westburg, the woman who held the welfare of Maine's children at the tip of her pen, was tittering over the emotional exit of the mother of a murdered five-year-old from a legislative hearing at which Westburg was testifying.
Seated before Maine's legislative Health and Human Services Committee, Westburg had just watched Logan Marr's mother rush from the room in pursuit of the only committee member to acknowledge the state's role in the death of her daughter. Representative Julie O'Brien (R-Augusta) had interrupted the proceedings to publicly apologize to Christy Marr. Other committee members looked uncomfortable at an acknowledgment that bordered on admission, from one of their own, of state culpability. They sat in awkward silence as O'Brien departed, quickly followed by the young mother and a flurry of journalists.
But Westburg appeared unruffled as she faced committee members, even looking pleased when her jaunty "Díya think it was something I said?" -- delivered with an expression akin to a smirk -- was greeted with a nervous ripple of laughter. It was not until she glanced about the room to assess reactions and noted that a journalist had remained behind, did Westburg look uneasy.
Had Westburg been any other person, the incident would have been appalling. That she delivered the flip quip in her official capacity as the director of Child and Family Services for Maine's Department of Human Services -- in relation to the torture death of a child in the custody of the department which Westburg oversaw -- made it unconscionable.........
To read The DHS Fix in its entirely, go to:
http://www.asmainegoes.com/CommonSense2m.pdf