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News Update SB1448 - Chesbro - 3/14/02

The California Memorial Project
News Update: March 14, 2002
SB 1448 (Chesbro, Arcata) Is Introduced

Senator Wesley Chesbro has introduced SB 1448 to address the problem of the desecration and disrepair of the resting places of people with developmental and mental disabilities throughout the state. Over 20,000 patients have died and were buried at a state hospital or developmental center from the mid 1880's to 1960. Their remains are for the most part unmarked, in mass gravesites, where numbered markers have long ago disappeared.

This legislation emerged from a Hearing held by the Senate Select Committee on Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities on November 19, 2001 at NAPA State Hospital and after a year of organizing, research and education by the California Network of Mental Health Clients, Peer and Self Advocacy Unit of PAI, and Capitol People First groups. Senator Chesbro in a letter to other legislators requesting co-authors wrote, "I am proud to work in partnership with the California Network of Mental health Clients, Capitol People First, and the Peer and Self Advocacy Unit of Protection and Advocacy, Inc., in the development of this legislation."

The intent of SB 1448 is to support persons with disabilities in their efforts to restore dignity to persons whose remains are buried in gravesites on state hospital and developmental center lands, and other places, through conducting inventories, developing restoration plans for gravesites and cemeteries, and creating very important protocols for the future internment of patients.

How we are treated in death is indicative of the way we were valued in life. By honoring and paying respect to people with mental and developmental disabilities who are dead, people with mental and developmental disabilities are reclaiming and honoring their present and future. We are reversing the discrimination that we faced and still face.

SB 1448 is scheduled to be heard at the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, on Wednesday, April 3, Room in room 4203. The Committee meets at 1:30.

This is the first hearing for this bill, so it is important to demonstrate its support by our presence. Your cards and letters are also essential.

Write letters/cards to:

Senator Debra Ortiz
Chair, Health and Human Services Committee
California State Senate
Room 2191
Sacramento, CA 95814

With a c.c. to the author
Senator Wesley Chesbro
State Capitol, Room 4081
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 445-3375
Fax (916) 323-6958

SB 1448 furthers the goals of the California Memorial Project:

1. To restore the cemeteries at state hospitals and developmental centers and other places where patients of these hospitals have been interred;
2. To record the stories of patients from inside state hospitals and developmental centers;
3. To document and memorialize the ex-patient/consumer/survivor movement in California.

To learn more about SB 1448 or the California Memorial Project, contact:

Karen Zimmer, Project Coordinator, at the CNMHC Office: 1-800-626-7447 or e-mail her at: main@cnmhc.com or wildspirit@spiritsearch.com