Families, disabled adults ask S.J. supervisors to save program

STOCKTON — For Daisy Plovnick and others hoping to save San Joaquin County’s Activity Center for developmentally disabled adults, each passing day on the calendar is one fewer remaining for them to preserve a program many view as a second home.

Tuesday morning, about 30 advocates brought their cause before the Board of Supervisors, hoping the county will find a lastminute answer to help the Activity Center avoid the budget ax.

“These adults have so little opportunities in life,” Plovnick, whose 26-year-old son Michael attends the Activity Center, told supervisors. “If we can work with you we will to try to keep it open.”

The Activity Center — established 57 years ago by parents and advocates for the developmentally disabled — may shut its doors for the final time on June 30. Valley Mountain Regional Center foots most of the cost, and the county for years has provided a subsidy to cover the remaining program expenses.

In phone interviews late Tuesday afternoon, Supervisors Chuck Winn and Tom Patti voiced little optimism the Activity Center can be saved.

“I’m not sure what more we can do,” Winn said. “I’ve been working on this for six months. I’ve explored every opportunity. Unfortunately I’ve struck out. It doesn’t appear we’re going to find that solution I think we’re all looking for.”

Patti called closing the center “a very difficult decision.” He added, “It’s not affordable for the county. I’d like to believe we will help them transition to a new place where they can build new relationships and have new opportunities.”

Officials say the subsidy paid by the county has grown from $104,000 in 2007-08 to a projected $621,000 in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. San Joaquin County’s generalfund budget is nearly $886 million.

Greg Diederich, the county’s director of health services, said his department is working to place the Activity Center’s consumers into new programs. He said about one-third of the Activity Center’s clients — roughly 45 out of an original enrollment of about 140 — have already moved to alternative programs.

“We expect the balance to be placed by late May,” Diederich said. “All consumers will be able to find placement in alternative programs within the county. Certain programs may have a waiting list ... but overall there is capacity in the VMRC system.”

But a new program won’t be the same, said 28-year-old Activity Center advocate Mimi Galvan, one of about a dozen speakers who addressed supervisors.

“We love our program,” Galvan said. “We get to go and make wonderful friends. You tell us we will all have somewhere else to go that’s as good. We know that’s not true.”

Galvan was one of several Activity Center consumers to make impassioned pleas to supervisors Tuesday.

“I have learned a lot of skills that have helped me become more independent and more confident in myself,” said Larisha Vanzanten, who attended the Activity Center for four years and now works there as a volunteer. “The center has helped me try new things, go places and learn new skills. I don’t want the Activity Center to close. It has helped me and others. This is my family.”

Supervisor Kathy Miller suggested a meeting with consumers and families to discuss the situation before the fiscal year ends June 30.

“I just feel like sometimes what people need is to be heard,” Miller said. “They trust us because this is a program that has had great results for the people that they love. We definitely have heard them and we want to be as positive as possible in addressing the shortfalls for this program.”