Great Rivers Behavioral Health Organization has filed a complaint against the City of McCleary in Grays Harbor County Superior Court.
Great Rivers is a five-county agency that manages mental health treatment funding.
Late in 2016, Great Rivers received a $2 million grant to repurpose the former Mark Reed Hospital in McCleary into a residential treatment facility. A residential treatment facility provides short-term mental health treatment services to patients who are usually sent to the facility involuntarily.
In April, the McCleary City Council amended city code through an ordinance to add a definition for residential treatment facilities. Without the definition, the facility could not legally be housed within the City of McCleary, the council said.
With a definition in place, the matter now has been sent to the hearing examiner for a recommendation as to which zone would be most appropriate for a residential treatment facility. See “Hearing discusses zoning for residential treatment facilities” on Page A-1 for a full story about the hearing.
The former Mark Reed Hospital was a non-conforming use within a residential zone. The city maintains that the hospital itself — having not performed surgery — did not meet the city’s definition and likely should not have been allowed to operate where it was.
The lawsuit filed on May 11 says the city’s definition change “was to unlawfully ban facilities that provide critical and much needed inpatient mental health services to mentally ill individuals in the City of McCleary, Grays Harbor County and beyond.”
According to the lawsuit, “political pressure and animus towards Great Rivers and its mentally ill patients prompted the city to preemptively exclude all inpatient mental health services… by amending its zoning code on a wholesale basis… Great Rivers’ proposed E&T Facility is likely considered a “residential treatment center,” which are not permitted anywhere in the city.”
The lawsuit states the ordinance violates equal protection under the state constitution, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act, substantive due process under the state constitution and the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the State Environmental Policy Act and the city’s own municipal code.
Great Rivers, through the lawsuit, is seeking an injunction against the ordinance.
McCleary’s city attorney Dan Glenn confirmed receipt of the suit and said the litigation is “not properly legally founded and is also an unfortunate decision.”
“The purpose of the definitional ordinance was to make the city’s definition of a hospital consistent with that utilized by the state and to expand the definitional sections of the city’s zoning code to include the term utilized by the state for defining the type of facility BHO has indicated they wish to locate within the city,” Glenn wrote in a an email to The Vidette. “Without that definition, it was and is the city’s position that in the event of the submission of a completed application for the opening of such a facility, there would be no guidance as to considering the location of such a facility since it is not allowed specifically in any zone.”
