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« on: April 12, 2005, 12:47:00 AM »
My name is Devlin Graves and I am here to oppose the sale of the Kemper Military Academy Property to Golden Pond LLC or (WWASP short for the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs).
Now lets talk about Chapter 210.484 of the Missouri State Statues:
Residential care facilities license required.
RSMo 210.484. Not withstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, the department of health and senior services shall license residential care facilities, as defined in subdivision (10) of section 210.481
Subdivision (10) of section 210.481 "Residential care facility", a facility providing twenty-four-hour care in a group setting to children who are unrelated to the person operating the facility and who are unattended by a parent or guardian.
The only Exceptions to the licensure requirement that could possibly affect Kemper are:
210.516. 1. It shall be unlawful for any person to establish, maintain, or operate a foster home, residential care facility, or child placing agency, or to advertise or hold himself out as being able to perform any of the services as defined in sections 210.481 to 210.536, without having in full force and effect a license issued by the division; provided, however, that nothing in sections 210.481 to 210.536 shall apply to:
(1) Any residential care facility operated by a person in which the care provided is in conjunction with an educational program for which a tuition is charged and completion of the program results in meeting requirements for a diploma recognized by the state department of elementary and secondary education;
Now that Means that WWASP and Mr. (Randal Hinton) should License Kemper, as a ?child caring facility?. According to Missouri State Law unless they can somehow manage to meet certain exemptions provided by the law. The Bottom line is NOBODY forces ANY PRIVATE facility to care for children 24 hours per day ? ESPECIALLY TROUBLED TEENS with drug and alcohol problems and many other issues as well. Caring for TROUBLED TEENS should be done so with the utmost care and that should handled only by LICESENED residential treatment centers that are equipped to deal with TROUBLED TEENAGERS not some ?Boarding School? that is un-licensed. Just recently Utah passed a new law saying that all ?Boarding Schools? that work with TROUBLED TEENS MUST be LICESENED. If Kemper wants to deal with TROUBLED TEENS they should get a license and not masquerade as a ?Boarding School? in order to escape State Licensure.
I have 2 questions for Randal Hinton before I go any further:
1. Are you going to be the program administrator for the proposed Kemper facility?
2. What type of educational background do you have? (I.e. graduated college, high school.) What is your degree in if you graduated college?
The Rules for Residential Child Care Agencies on Page 14 Line 2 section C it says the following:
The Administrator shall be at lease (25) years of age and shall have one of the following:
1. A masters digress in social work, counseling, social work administration, or a related human service degree, from an accredited school and (2) years experience in the management or supervision of Child Care Personnel and Programs.
2. A bachelor?s degree in social work or a human service area of Study from an accredited school and four (4) years experience in the management or supervision of childcare personnel programs.
3. If the Administrator is responsible for personnel, fiscal management and physical facilities, not responsible for the programs and services of the intrusion, the agency may employ an administrator who has a bachelor?s degree from an accredited school and (2) years experience in child care services.
However, in this case, the agency shall employ a program director who meets the qualifications set forth in 13 CSR 40-71.070(2)(C)1.
This means that Randal Hinton is not qualified to be the program administrator at Kemper according to our state law if it was licensed. If he is not qualified why should he be allowed to run Kemper? Why should he be allowed to work with any kids in Boonville? Or is Randall Hinton going to try to run Kemper as an un-licensed facility? Even day car centers have to be licensed! I don?t think anyone here would trust any of our children to an un-licensed day care center.
Just two final questions for Randal Hinton please:
· How are you going to keep kids from running away?
· What are you going to do if I kid tries to runaway?
In other facilities located in Missouri, similar to what is proposed at Kemper. The local police have had issues of kids running away and stealing cars in order escape. In fact a recent news article it talks about the sheriff of Caldwell County having problems of kids running away from Thayer Learning Center and stealing cars to escape. There was another such instance in which 3 kids runaway from Mountain Park Academy located in Greenville, MO. They stole a car, and then led police on a dangerous high-speed pursuit eventually crashing the car into a stop sign in a residential neighborhood. Now what are the local residents of Boonville going to when their cars come up stolen and crashed by kids running away from Kemper? As you know Kemper is located in a residential area with the YMCA located next door even.
What if a kid running away from Kemper steals a car and runs over someone or gets in an accident running from the police? Or the cops pursuing the stolen car runs someone over or cause an accident as a result of the pursuit? We all know high-speed pursuits are dangerous. I think there is a Missouri State Law that says that these facilities can't be sued if a kid runs away and causes any kind of damage -like stealing a car or wrecking it-- that means that either WWASP or Golden Pond wouldn't have to pay a dime even if the mayor of the city or a little kid was run down by a stolen car driven by a teen escaping Kemper.
I could go on about the past history of WWASP but that is already known by this council and I don?t want to re-hash information again and again. Thanks for listening to me and please review all the evidence and make up your own minds whether you want WWASP next door. I will make myself available after this meeting for any questions by anyone and also if anyone is interested I can play a copy of the Inside Edition DVD that features WWASP.
Thanks Again.