By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – The proposal to establish a mental health court in Clallam County takes a step forward Monday when District Court Judge Dave Neupert and Prosecutor Mark Nichols present the latest information to the Board of County Commissioners.
They’ll be asking Commissioners to approve the necessary funds to hire a Mental Health Court Coordinator and accompanying Support Staff position.
The mental health court has been compared in its conception to the already established drug court model. Prosecutor Nichols explains.
“And so it’s an alternative way of having the criminal justice system deal with certain categories of offenders who, frankly, are not effectively being dealt with by the current system. Mental health court is a variety of therapeutic court or specialty court. So you have a judge involved, you’ve got treatment providers involved, you’ve got law enforcement involved, to try to address the problem that’s driving criminal behavior, instead of merely focusing on punishing bad behavior.”
Violent crimes and other certain cases would not be eligible for consideration, but participants who complete the rigorous mental health court program would be given the opportunity to have charges dropped and their arrest record expunged.
Because Judge Neupert would preside over the court and most other roles in the program would be handled by existing staff and stakeholders, the money needed to establish the court would pay the salaries of a Court Coordinator and one supporting staff position.
Nichols has estimated that it could be done for somewhere between $150 thousand to $250 thousand per year.
“This would not require new money, I think that’s very important for folks to understand. Instead, years ago the then seated County Board of Commissioners adopted a mental health and treatment tax. We know that as the Hargrove Tax locally. That can only be used for specified purposes. One of them happens to be to fund treatment courts, with an emphasis on mental health. And so what we’re going to ask the Commissioners to do is to take a closer look at that reserve amount and answer the question of whether they believe that there’s an adequately large amount in the reserve to fund this, say, for a three to five-year startup period.”
The presentation will be Monday, July 19 at 9:00am, and the public is welcome to join via BlueJeans video conference at