Monday - Friday
8:00 am - 5:00 pm

500 E. San Antonio
Suite 301
El Paso, Texas 79901
Phone (915) 546-2111
Fax (915) 543-3817
commissioner2
@epcounty.com

El Paso County Commissioner Pct. 2
Veronica Escobar

  • Kids' mental health will be discussed by county
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  • Kids' mental health will be discussed by county

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  • By Erica Molina Johnson / El Paso Times

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  • Article Launched: 02/05/2007 12:00:00 AM MST

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  • The Border Children's Mental Health Collaborative and its related contracts will again go before Commissioners Court today after being postponed several times since Dec. 4.

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  • At issue is whether to terminate a contract with LKG, a company asked to perform evaluations for the program. Commissioners Veronica Escobar and Dan Haggerty voted Jan. 22 to terminate the contract, but the motion did not pass.
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  • "I'm just as ready (today) as I was a couple of weeks ago to put this item out to bid so we can get a competent, qualified company to perform that requirement in the grant," Escobar said.
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  • An Oct. 26 report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, cited a lack of evaluation data as a problem within the collaborative.
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  • A priority recommendation was to have the evaluation component become compliant with federal requirements.
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  • The report states that TriWest, which previously had the contract, met all federal requirements. The contract was then awarded to LKG in fall 2005 after a request for proposals.

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  • "Since then there has been no data collection because of difficulty in obtaining IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval. IRB approval was obtained in June and it is anticipated that data collection will resume soon, although it will be impossible to retrieve the data lost during the last year," the report states.
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  • The federal report also states that the LKG contract is larger than the previous contract with TriWest, though it was unclear what additional services were being performed for the extra money.
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  • County Judge Anthony Cobos said he sent LKG a letter early last week asking for clarification, but has not received a response.
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  • "I am concerned that staff would be recommending to go with TriWest without putting it out to bid first, and I'm concerned about the amendment to LKG's contract," which specifies the need for in-kind contributions, Cobos said.
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  • Commissioner Luis Sariñana said he has issues with the contract and is not ready to count LKG out. He said he will ask for all discussion to be in open session, unlike most other times when it has been posted on the agenda.
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  • Cobos said he does not intend to ask for another postponement unless there is a lack of information or a new issue arises.
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  • Haggerty, however, is ready to move.
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  • "I stand by my vote. LKG needs to go away," said Haggerty, who returned from a trip last week to discuss the collaborative. "If we are going to turn it around, we need to clean house and start over and do the kinds of things we are mandated to do by this grant."
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  • He said the interim director, Gary Thornton, has resigned.
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  • "(Today) we will appoint an interim, and Judge Cobos wants Vivian Rojas," Haggerty said.
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  • Rojas is a former City Council representative.
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  • "She has not expressed that she would accept at this time," Cobos said. "She is obviously a community leader and I think she could really get this organized."
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  • Escobar was shocked to hear about the proposed appointment.
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  • "I cannot accept that," she said. "From my perspective it's highly inappropriate. She's a former politician who I don't believe has even been in charge of a multi-million dollar program."
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  • At the Jan. 22 meeting after discussion in executive session, Escobar made a motion to terminate the county's contract with LKG. This was seconded by Haggerty. It failed with Sariñana, Miguel Terán and Cobos voting against it.
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  • The three who voted against went on to vote to postpone the issue for two weeks, which is today's meeting. Haggerty and Escobar voted against the postponement.
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  • Commissioners today will also be asked to discuss and take appropriate action to adopt a resolution concerning eminent domain, though no supporting documentation was provided for the item.
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  • Erica Molina Johnson may be reached at emolina@elpasotimes.com; 546-6132.