This Weekend FRIDAY 40% Chance of Rain 56/41 H SATURDAY 30% Chance of rain ELECTION 56/41 SUNDAY GUIDE 30% Chance of rain 56/40 Inside carrborocitizen.com OCTOBER 15, 2009 u LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED u VOLUME III NO. XXXI FREE Mental Health Task Force issues somber report BY TAYloR SISK those not covered by Medicaid or private attempting to navigate the state’s mental The 15-member task force was com- Staff Writer insurance – are dangerously underserved health care system. prised of people representing the OPC by mental health care services. Among the recommendations made Area Program (our local management BREAKDowN The worse news is that state budget in the report are the placement of more entity, or LME, tasked with overseeing cuts mean that mental health care ser- UNC School of Social Work students in publicly funded services for Orange, vices in Orange, Chatham and Person local mental health agencies with paid Person and Chatham counties), service A series counties are to be reduced next year by supervision; improved awareness of men- providers, social-service agencies, UNC, more than $2 million. tal health issues among local law enforce- county government and the Chapel Hill on Mental Health The encouraging news, according ment and safety personnel; and stronger Police Department. The task force held to task force chair Natalie Ammarell, is leadership within the community on its first meeting in December and met Care in NC that the resources are within this com- mental health, developmental disability monthly through June. Two public lis- munity to begin turning things around. and substance abuse issues. tening sessions also were held. This story is a follow-up to a But awareness must first be heightened As Foy noted in announcing the for- series about mental health care and communications improved. Confronting the challenge mation of the task force, “The future of in North Carolina. To read the A step in that direction was taken In October of last year, Mayor Foy es- mental health care is uncertain.” previous stories in this series, go to at Monday night’s Chapel Hill Town tablished the task force with a mandate, Reform measures that began in carrborocitizen.com/main/breakdown/ Council meeting, as Foy’s Mental Health according to a memorandum submitted North Carolina in 2001 are now widely Task Force presented its final report. The then to the town council, to assess the viewed as having rendered disastrous re- A mental health task force convened report cites challenges for the community state of the mental health care system in sults. The thrust of reform was to move by Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy has that include critical gaps in post-hospital- Orange County, create a broader aware- people out of state institutions and into released its findings, and the bad news ization care and in all services for 18- to ness of mental health care issues in the community-based services and to priva- comes as no surprise: Those living 25-year-olds, an over-reliance on UNC’s community and provide recommenda- tize those services. with mental illness in Orange County mental health resources and the daunt- tions on the provisioning of services to – most particularly, young adults and ing task families and individuals face in county residents. SEE MENTAL HEALTH PAGE 7 Mayor PHOTO BY KEN MoorE The guardrail recently saved wild ageratum above apologizes Smith Level Road. to Brown BY RICH FowleR FLora BY KEN MOORE Staff Writer Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy Eupatorium’s many apologized to Charles Brown at Mon- day night’s town council meeting for shades and shapes the way Chapel Hill Police treated upatoriums have been Brown when he was mistakenly ar- featured in past Flora rested in June. Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP columns. Joe-Pye weed, president Michelle Laws, along with Eupatorium fistulosum, Brown, his wife, Truphenia, and that tall mid-summer, NAACP legal redress chair Al Mc- Edome-shaped, butterfly-covered, Surely, told Brown’s side of the story pale-purple-flower-headed road- to council. After their presentation, side one comes immediately to Foy apologized. PHOTO BY Dan SEars, UNC NEws SERVicES Brown recounted how he had mind. Then there is the recently Chancellor Holden Thorp uses lopping shears to cut a garland at the dedication of the new North Carolina Botanical described flat-topped, white- closed his barber shop on Rose- Garden Education Center on Monday. From left are, Bob Winston, chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees; Bill mary Street at 11:30 p.m. on June flowered, boneset of medicinal Bracey, president of the Botanical Garden Foundation; Gov. Bev Perdue; Chancellor Thorp; UNC student and Eve Carson 1 and started walking home along fame; remember, the “perfoliate” Scholar Elinor Benami; and Peter White, director of the North Carolina Botanical Garden. In her speech at the ceremony, Rosemary Street when a Chapel the governor hailed the center as a model for green building. leaf one, E. perfoliatum? Hill Police officer stopped him near Well now, I’m not going to try Breadmen’s and placed him under to describe the two dozen or arrest. The officer called him Mr. more different species of Eupa- A life lived in minuet time, al fine Fearrington, for whom there were toriums growing throughout our outstanding warrants. state, but there are two that can VALARIE SCHWARTZ Brown said he was handcuffed Staff Writer with his hands behind his back easily catch your attention now and was kept at the trunk of a po- along our roadsides. The trees of this place made the lice cruiser for about 40 minutes First, let me comment a bit greatest first impression when Max- until police checked his ID and on the official name, Eupatorium ine Swalin arrived as a 32-year-old ran a background check on him at (yew-pat-OR-ium). It’s from newlywed with her husband, Benja- 12:14 a.m. the Greek and commemorates min, in 1935. When she sighed her Tapes released by the Chapel Hill Mithridates Eupator, King of final deeply appreciative breath last Police to the NAACP indicate that Pontus, who is credited with week, 74 years later, the trees were at 12:14 a.m. a Chapel Hill Police the only living things left, older officer called in to check Brown’s the discovery that one species than her 106 years. identity against a number of criminal was an antidote against poison. School cahildren all over North databases and that the call ended at Perhaps it was one similar to our Carolina of several generations 12:30 a.m. Brown was released soon own boneset. So there you have knew this “music lady” whose after the call ended. The internal po- a tidbit about the genus name tremendous efforts made it pos- lice report released to the public by for this group of wildflowers (call sible for Benjamin to succeed in the town council claims that Brown them weeds if you dare) that resuscitating the first state-funded was arrested right before the call was orchestra in the nation. As com- made at 12:14 a.m. are a part of the large aster or fortable as she was on the stage, as Brown also said that while he was composite family of plants. a performing musician, speaker or held, he was taunted by some of the Challenging you regular Flora award recipient, she was every bit officers and that some of the taunts readers, remember the flower as approachable and gracious in were racial in nature. The police re- characteristics of the aster fam- her personal life, which she lived port denies this. ily? The flowers are really tight according to directions from her clusters, heads, of tiny flowers This pastel of Coker Arboretum was painted by Maxine Swalin in 2004, when SEE APOLOGY PAGE 3 in configurations of disc (tube) SEE SWALIN PAGE 8 she was 101 years old. flowers in the center surrounded by a circle of ray flowers, like Black-eyed Susans, or heads of all ray flowers, like dandelions, or Saying the word aloud heads of disc flowers, like Joe- Pye weeds. RECENTLY . BY VaLariE SCHwarTZ SEE FLORA PAGE 8 There used to be words that people simply did not say in “polite com- pany.” The “C-Word” was one of them. But it’s pretty much unavoidable, now, in these days when the latest statistics show that during the course of INSIDE a lifetime, one in four people will get the C-Word — cancer. In this community, our choices when dealing with cancer continue be- Endorsement letters yond excellent health services to the supportive practices of Cornucopia House, which since 1996 has offered programs and services to help heal the See page 6 mind and spirit of not only those afflicted with cancer but their loved ones as well. Sooner or later, we all know someone dealing with cancer and learn that whatever the outcome, cancer creates a process that leaves most people pro- INDEX foundly changed. Cornucopia House helps people through the process, with Healing Touch massages, acupuncture, restorative yoga, Reiki and polarity Music .........................................................................................2 sessions; estate planning; and support groups. Shared Journeys (previously News ................................................................................................ 3 called Peer Connect) offers a match with someone who is one year ahead on a Community .........................................................................................4 similar path, whether it be a person in treatment or a caregiver. Opinion .........................................................................................6 As the only such support center in the Triangle, Cornucopia House has Schools .................................................................................................. 5 understandably found itself inundated with people in need. PHOTO BY VALARIE SCHWARTZ Classifieds .................................................................................... 7 Mary Lawrence, executive director of Cornucopia House Almanac ...............................................................................................