Commissioner calls on Kotek to address behavioral health after Multnomah County ‘failures’

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran is asking Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek to intervene after the county failed to create or implement plans to address the behavioral health crisis.

In a message sent Thursday to Gov. Kotek, her Behavioral Health Policy Director Juliana Wallace, and Oregon Health Authority Behavioral Health Director Ebony Clarke, Meieran claims Multnomah County has not fulfilled its duty under Oregon law to act as a Local Mental Health Authority (LMHA) — claiming the county failed to act on a statutory and moral basis.

“Throughout the past seven years of my term as County Commissioner, I have expressed concern about this both publicly and privately, and have pushed for the County to do more. At this time, I have lost confidence that the County has the ability to fulfill its role as the LMHA, and I believe that this requires intervention at the State level,” Meiran said in the message.

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Meieran pointed to a report she commissioned at the beginning of her term in 2018 on the Multnomah County Mental Health System, which led to the creation of the Blueprint for Better Behavioral Health that included framework for creating a behavioral health continuum.

However, the commissioner says former Chair Deborah Kafoury de-prioritized the project before it was completed and that the county has seen additional “failures” to fulfill its obligation as an LMHA.

According to Meieran, Multnomah County has seen: The decimation of the original Behavioral Health Emergency Coordination Network, failure to address the fentanyl crisis, and a failed relationship between the Health Department and jail – which she points out was condemned in a National Institute of Corrections report, as first reported by Willamette Week.

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Meieran also points to an “unprecedented” number of deaths in county jails over the last year, along with turnover of five behavioral health directors in six years, and seven health directors in seven years.

She also slammed the county’s failure to hire a new permanent behavioral health director for nearly a year “when mental health and addiction issues have been at the heart of virtually all the major issues facing our community,” along with failure to have a coherent plan around the youth mental health crisis.

Meieran says even though Multnomah County has “scattered elements” of a behavioral health system, the county’s failure to act as an LMHA led to “terminal dysfunction” in coordinating and planning.

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She says other agencies have stepped in to help including the City of Portland with Portland Street response and the police bureau’s Behavioral Health Unit, CareOregon and Healthshare CCOs, along with Central City Concern and Oregon Health & Sciences University who are making recommendations on filling gaps in the behavioral health system.

Meieran acknowledged that the COVID pandemic added to the strained system. However, she said “it was troubling that when our behavioral health crisis worsened during the pandemic and the County as LMHA should have been bringing people together like never before, County leadership used the pandemic as an excuse for failing to meet our statutory responsibilities, not a call to action.”

The commissioner adds that the county does not have a current Comprehensive Local Plan for mental health, a functional continuum for behavioral health care, nor coordinated efforts to create one, as mandated under state law.

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“Our failure to fulfill our statutory and moral responsibilities as the LMHA has directly led to and/or exacerbated multiple behavioral health crises in our community. You only need to look at recent headlines to see some of the tragedies that have occurred due to the lack of an effective behavioral health continuum, and these heartbreaking stories are just the tip of the iceberg. As one of the many people working in healthcare and social services, I see the impacts regularly in the ER and as a volunteer caring for people experiencing homelessness,” Meieran said the message.

She continued, “At this time, the situation is not salvageable without external intervention, and I believe that the State must step in to ensure that our legal obligations under ORS 430.630 are met for the people we are meant to serve.”

In the message, Meieran asked Kotek to intervene to address the county’s failure to implement a comprehensive local behavioral health plan.

“I realize this is a very serious request, and I do not make it lightly. But we are facing numerous behavioral health crises, things are getting worse before our eyes, and we have yet to see any critical action being taken by County leadership that has the potential to reverse our trajectory. People residing in our County are suffering and dying. We need to do something,” Meieran said.

Kotek’s office tells KOIN 6 News they are reviewing Meieran’s request.

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