MISSOURI WATCH: THE BUREAUCRATS WIN ANOTHER ONE

This is an update on a column that appeared in this space a couple of months ago. The piece dealt with my foolish belief that if enough Missourians knew how their money was being wasted, they would rise up and do something about it.

I guess Missourians were too busy in September to voice much complaint, and so the plans that were outlined in that commentary are proceeding apace.

The plans call for the state's demolition of a public building, constructed at a cost of more than $30 million, on the grounds of the St. Louis State Hospital at 5400 Arsenal Street. The structure is the Kohler Building, named in honor of a longtime superintendent at the facility, which was originally under the jurisdiction of the city and passed to state control back-in the 1950s.

Built some 30 years ago, the Kohler Building was at the time a state of the art facility, housing both clinical patients and research personnel, and until a new multiple building youth center was later built directly behind, it was the newest structure on the hospital's grounds.

The purpose of the column was to save the taxpayers of the state not only their original, multimillion-dollar investment in the Kohler Building but also the huge costs involved in destroying it. Since the state's ability to fund every worthwhile program is finite, the logical reasoning seemed to be that this money could be better spent on the mentally ill than to line the pockets of demolition companies. If you read the piece, you know that I urged you to contact your state legislator and anyone else in Jefferson City who even looked important in order that some semblance of common sense could be injected into state government.

What is surprising is that anyone, given today's sociopolitical climate would lift a finger to save Kohler. But a surprising number of people did. There were calls from several small cities around the state, most notably in the central part, and from both St. Louis and Kansas City. Some of the calls were even from state legislators wanting to know more about the official actions they, themselves, had already taken. Not a few of the officials voiced surprise that they had, unwittingly, placed a stamp of approval on such a patently foolish and wasteful project.

A couple of conscientious members of the state Mental Health Commission also got involved, asking agency officials for a complete study. What they got, however, was less of a study and much more a litany of bureaucratic gibberish. The information provided was suspect from word one, and one of the reports was prepared by the same bureaucrat who is responsible for putting the project on line. That's like asking Bill Clinton to write an assessment of the federal government from 1993 through 1996, with a preface to the report written by Hillary.

The Department of Mental Health's explanation boils down to an unreasonable and illogical rationale that destroying a perfectly good building is needed because additional (and highly expensive) structures are to be built on the same hospital grounds, with the end result being a startling improvement in the care of mentally ill men, women and children. Never mind that this person has no clinical qualifications but has been a career bureaucrat in the department for years. He is versed in the ability to snow the public, and its representatives, employing logic that would confuse even the most logical.

The long and short of all this is: the Kohler building is being torn down, new buildings are going to be built in its stead and the most ancient buildings on the campus will remain. Most logical persons will find it strange that the rationale for destroying the Kohler building is forgotten when the question of demolishing buildings 50 and even 75 years older is posed.

The former director of the department, Dr. George Ulett, has given p. So has the former grounds superintendent. So have numerous state legislators, some of whom live less than a few miles from the hospital campus. The bureaucrats win again.

Oh, yes, one more thing. You recall the earlier mention of a youth center, a multi-building campus to treat mentally ill children? It was constructed at a cost of more than $25 million. The youth center is no longer in operation. It has gone unused for years, and before long someone will seek funds to demolish it. I'd give odds the request is approved.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.