WEBVTT

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The Department had done

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a number of proposals

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to basically close facilities,

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not necessarily to improve care

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or to have a serious program

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for normalization. It was just

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more that they wanted to save money.

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And what started to change all that,

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I think, was when the Welsch v

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Likins decree came out in '74, '75,

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somewhere in there, where the court

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simply said the State had failed

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to provide a minimum level of care

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for developmentally disabled people.

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And I think the vast majority of

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our members, who were the line workers

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at the then-called State Hospitals,

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agreed with Welsch v Likins

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that they were under-funded,

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they did not have the capacity and the

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staff and resources to provide the

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care people needed. And for a number of

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years there I think we saw the

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staffing levels, the funding for the...

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what by now were being

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called Regional Treatment Centers improve.

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That started to fall apart with the funding

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crises of '81, '82, '83. We went through

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very, very bad times. There were special

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session after special session, the revenue

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wasn't coming in, and as part of one of

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those the legislature in its wisdom simply

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decided to close Rochester. And it was not

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based on public policy reasons. It was

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not based upon "This is a good change of

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treatment" for both DD, I think there were

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also mental - mentally ill

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and chem dep folks there at that point.

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It was not that there was

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 better treatment. It was that they just

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wanted to save the money. And so Rochester

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got closed. Patients got - clients and

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patients got redistributed to other

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facilities. Staff got redistributed

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to other facilities.

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I think the lesson that we as 

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a union took out of that,

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and that a lot of the

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ranks of our workers

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took out of that, is you

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can close a hospital. Hastings had

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closed earlier, but that really wasn't

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the same thing. You could close a

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major facility.

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And this facility was in Al Quie's ...

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then Governor Quie's old

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congressional district.

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The fact that they can take that one

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out, they can take out almost anything.

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Rudy Perpich won the next election in '82.

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And Rudy, I think, on a personal basis

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had a strong commitment, and clearly his

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brother George had a strong commitment,

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 to finding a way to place DD clients in

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a less restrictive alternative.