Thirty-Five Years Ago This Week: Longtime Arapahoe County Republican activist Mort Marks argued in a column published in The Colorado Statesman that “…the vast majority of the homeless should be in facilities under the supervision of health departments.

He continued, citing legislation passed in the 1950s that had phased out “large, grossly inadequate state mental hospitals where patients were being involuntarily confined.”

The turn from state mental hospitals to community driven voluntary services was a noble one, Marks said. The numbers of patients in publicly run mental hospitals plummeted nearly 80%. But the results had demonstrated reforms had failed.

“…community-based care has not worked,” Marks argued. “Everybody is for it in principle, but no one wants it in their own neighborhoods. Moreover … care for patients with chronic mental conditions has turned out to be much more expensive and more difficult to sustain.”

Further compounding the issue, Marks argued, were federal laws passed in the 1970s to protect the civil rights of the mentally ill, making it impossible in 1990 to meet their needs.

“Our country’s civil libertarians insist we honor this right,” Marks said. “They condemn all involuntary psychiatric intervention as an offense of liberty.”

Marks quoted Wisconsin based Dr. Donald A. Treffert, executive director of the Fond du Lac County Health Care Center, who questioned what kind of freedom it was “to be wandering the streets, severely mentally ill, deteriorating, and getting warm from a steam grate …or to be jailed for disorderly conduct because that is all the law will allow instead of being hospitalized?

“That’s not freedom or liberty for them — it’s out right abandonment by us for their misfortune of being mentally ill,” Treffert said.

The laws of the past hadn’t worked and some new approach was urgently required, Marks insisted.

“It is our responsibility to conceive of some carefully structured standards for involuntary intervention … nationally our laws need to be changed to that the mentally disabled can be hospitalized and treated.”

Fifteen Years Ago: “It’s politically motivated,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Grand Junction, of the ethics complaint filed against him by the Denver-based non-profit Colorado Ethics Watch.

In the complaint filed with Speaker of the House Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, Luis Toro, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, said that King had potentially “double dipped”; where a campaign fund and the state were billed for the same expense.

“State legislators may request mileage reimbursements from the state, but they must confirm that they did not receive reimbursement for the same expense elsewhere,” Toro said.

Toro told The Statesman that King’s campaign finance reports showed a $1,403.33 reimbursement from his campaign for gasoline, vehicle repair and vehicle rental. The report also showed a $5,018.60 in reimbursement from the state for the same.

King at the time was running for the state senate seat that had been vacated by Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction.

“My feeling is that the timing is certainly questionable,” said King. “I’m confident at the end of the day that this will be looked at as just a partisan attempt to assassinate my character.”

Colorado Ethics Watch reviewed the finance reports of all 100 legislators, Toro said, and had only found issues with one. Toro said that he and his organization had no intention of assassinating King’s character and was disappointed at the legislator’s response.

“It tells us noting about the underlying facts which are the subject of the complaint,” Toro said. “I would have been a lot happier if he had said something like ‘this isn’t true.’”

Although Carroll was legally prohibited from commenting on an ethics investigation, King implied that an ethics committee had been convened.

“We are collecting all the documents that the ethics commission has asked for,” King said.

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Colorado Springs Gazette.