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Before El Dorado County leaps into a caretaker permit program it should stop and think it over. The key takeaway from the discussion before the Board of Supervisors July 17 came from the public guardian, Jan Walker-Conroy, who said 75 percent of the elder abuse cases involve family members.
Making family members get permits and spend $90 for a sheriff’s background check are not even in the realm of reality. We have to believe Supervisor John Knight was joking when he said he wanted his children licensed when he gets to be really old. Government has no business interfering in family business. If a family member is abusing an elder family member, there are laws for that and our tax money is funding several different local agencies to handle those situations.
There are some folks who quit their jobs to care for an elder parent at home. The sacrifice many make needs to be respected.
If licensing caregivers and running background checks on them makes for less work by various county agencies as they asserted July 17, then we want to see the plan for cutting excess county positions in these agencies.
Supervisor Ron Briggs claims this program will give law enforcement the ability to immediately remove someone who they suspect is in danger instead of having to go before a judge. Here we have to disagree. Especially with a family member county officials should have to convince a judge and the person in question should have an opportunity to defend him or herself before a judge. Cutting the judge out of the process turns it into a police state ordinance.
Is the ordinance aimed at caretakers who stay overnight? Is it aimed at those who merely do housekeeping? Is it aimed at those who are there during daytime hours? Is it aimed at those who help out two hours or less per day? Is it aimed at those who help out a few hours a week? This permitting plan needs to be thought over more thoroughly.
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MrsBJuly 31, 2012 - 1:48 pm
Before our county decides to begin any "new program" to protect our seniors they need to clean up the programs already in place. There have been numerous occasions where the proper agency has protected seniors from abusive situations, however they have taken their powers to interject themselves into family affairs and then disregard the facts to meet their own agenda. And if that agenda is not money then it is purely mailicious and either way unmoral and illegal. While people like Lee Jackson, Jan Walker-Conroy and Teri Monterosso spout comments of "protecting" and "enriching" the lives of our seniors my family's experience has been the opposite. They continue to employ persons with no investigative skills; and whom use tactics of lies, distortion, bullying to meet their personal agenda, instead of the wishes of the senior. While I also agree that the "judge" should not be taken out of the equation, however in our El Dorado County Department 9 there is a reputation of not looking at the facts but instead siding with the "home side" of county counsel. The Board of Supervisors needs to hold their current programs and personnel accountable before spending dollars to create another program that has potential to infringe on the rights of our seniors rather than protect them.
Carolyn BoomerAugust 01, 2012 - 11:06 am
Good grief! Will this county stop at nothing to make a buck? Ron Briggs, you should be ashamed of yourself. There are plenty of laws protecting seniors from elder abuse. Why do we have another one, except to make money, and to "make work" for county staff that is already overloaded with dumb stuff to do?
SHAugust 02, 2012 - 8:29 am
What the heck is going on with the BOS?! This is unnacceptable. Between this, the ridiculous fire tax, taking away our public land use and taking away property rights, I'm getting scared. EDC used to represent the exact OPPOSITE. How do they get away with this? I sure wish the BOS meetings weren't in the middle of the day during the week while everyone is at work and can't sit in and prevent this BS from happening.