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Pat Lando, Part 2

This is a continution of an interview with Pat Lando by Karen Brewster and Marla Statscewich on April 29, 2012 in Valdez, Alaska.

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Digital Asset Information

Archive #: Oral History 2006-15-33_PT.2

Project: Alaska Mental Health Trust History
Date of Interview: Apr 29, 2012
Narrator(s): Pat Lando
Interviewer(s): Karen Brewster
Videographer: Marla Statscewich
Transcriber: Joan O'Leary
Location of Interview:
Funding Partners:
Alaska Humanities Forum, Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority
Alternate Transcripts
There is no alternate transcript for this interview.
Slideshow
There is no slideshow for this person.

After clicking play, click on a section to navigate the audio or video clip.

Sections

Section 1: Reasons he fought the keep Harborview open

Section 2: Family members access to Valdez

Section 3: Community-based programs for clients

Section 4: Care at Harborview versus home care

Section 5: Ex-Harborview patients remained in Valdez

Section 6: Philosophical change closed institutions

Section 7: Oil spill in Valdez affected Harborview

Section 8: Transition from Morningside to Harborview

Section 9: Admission to Harborview

Section 10: Relationship between Valdez and Harborview residents

Section 11: Criticism of the institution

Section 12: The lobbying against the institution

Section 13: Management structure at Harborview

Section 14: State bureaucracy

Section 15: Harborview residents leaving the institution

Section 16: What happened to Harborview after it was shut down

Section 17: Managing Harborview for most of his career

Section 18: Greatest satisfaction from working at Harborview

Section 19: Things he's been doing since retiring in '99

Section 20: Recreational activities for the clients in Valdez

Section 21: Separate units for disabilities

Section 22: Clients taught skills for independent living

Section 23: City of Valdez benefited from Harborview

Section 24: Dealing with criticism from families

Section 25:Harborview viewed negatively by Alaskans

Click play, then use Sections or Transcript to navigate the interview.

After clicking play, click a section of the transcript to navigate the audio or video clip.

Transcript

Section 1: PAT LANDO: So I psychologically said, you know --
KAREN BREWSTER: When Harborview closed, you didn't go into --
PAT LANDO: The chapter is over. The book is closed. I'm not going to talk about it anymore. I did what I thought was -- I thought I did all right. I thought I did, you know, I --

KAREN BREWSTER: It sounded like -- it sounds like you fought very hard to keep it open?

PAT LANDO: We did and that was my little -- and I did it for honorable -- honorable reasons, you know. I didn't -- I did not do that at the risk of the clients. I did it I think in looking at the holistic way, I guess I was trying to look at the big picture of, you know, the fact that we had a great staff and it was a shame to -- to basically fire -- so the last three years I spent basically letting everybody go, you know, systematically.

KAREN BREWSTER: I think there is a perception that because you fought to keep it open you were against home care treatment.

PAT LANDO: Oh, no, no -- that’s -- see that’s what -- that’s BS, you know. We -- we promoted it. We are the ones that first started it. We -- as I mentioned that was our first thing was to move folks out. We did it on our own before we even -- so we were the first ones to advocate for it and we worked with them.

We did more -- we brought them -- we used to bring them down from Hope Cottage and they could spend time learning. We actually taught -- taught them some things, you know. They could come down and learn some of our -- we -- we were ahead of the curve in so many ways.

We had some, you know, we had some things going that they hadn't, you know, they hadn't even thought about. And so we were a resource to other people if they wanted to take advantage of it, so.

So no, no it became a good guy - bad guy kind thing and it was from the onset. The good guys were the -- the nonprofits. We were the -- the institutions are always the bad guys and we could never defend ourselves.

They could always, you know, I was always told to keep my mouth shut, in those words. You know, we've gone to public meetings and we were not allowed to defend ourselves.

Fortunately, they could never get the goods on us and I’ll tell you -- even though there was one incident that I won’t even get into that was really bad.

Over all those years we never had one family or consumer complaint. Now that’s pretty good. So that made me feel -- I had families that were absolutely adamant that they did not want their family member up to Hope Cottages or some place where they had no control of what went on in those homes.

And as I mentioned to you before, we never had a suit, which I felt good about. We never had a, you know, usually institutions are -- were ripe for suits, you know. I mean families loved to sue a state institution.

Never had a suit by a family member or a guardian. The only suit I ever had was against me and that was for firing an employee that refused to work and that was two years after the place was closed. And they dragged me into court over that and it was two years later on a phony -- phony deal.

But that was strictly a personnel matter and so that was, you know, I guess if I had anything to say, not many people can say that they are, you know, run institution given what we were dealing with that didn't have -- cause I went to enough -- not a lot, but I did go to a few superintendent meetings with these big institutions, but that’s all they ever talked about that they were getting sued personally.

The institution was being sued for all kinds of, you know, you know, malpractice, mistreatment, abuse, whatever so that’s all that consumed them and many of them didn't last very long because they were basically run off -- run out of them.

So the good news about being in Valdez, you didn't get that kind of, you know, we had oversight believe me. The Juneau group always coming down here and the surveyors were here all the time.

Section 2: So we had oversight but we didn't have the kind of constant day-to-date scrutiny. We had -- we -- family members were allowed to come any time. We used to have them come down. It was difficult and again that was the problem of Valdez.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, that was one of my questions.
PAT LANDO: That was always the problem --
KAREN BREWSTER: How much contact was there with the family --
PAT LANDO: Valdez is a conundrum, if that’s a word for you, in terms of it’s always difficult to get in and out of here.

And wintertime is impossible and oftentimes and for visitation purposes it’s tough for families. Although the fact that most of our families were in the Bush, they wouldn’t have come visited if they were in Anchorage anyways.

Some did go out in the villages. Now there was some -- I've lost track, you know, of -- but they tried to get programs in the villages and they did probably succeed in a number of villages.

Section 3: The other player that was really important was a guy named Todd Risley. Did that name every come up to you?
KAREN BREWSTER: Um-hm.
PAT LANDO: Well Todd --

KAREN BREWSTER: I was going to ask you about that.
PAT LANDO: Todd was the guru. He was the, you know, he had the classic beard and he was the, you know, the philosopher and he was the mentor of the prof -- of the nonprofits and he also became medical division director at one point.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, he had some theory about zone -- zone -- a way of treating with zone areas or something?

PAT LANDO: Yeah. He had -- he had -- he was a brilliant kind of guy and he set the philosophy for how to set up community programming and so he -- he also came down and helped us with things early on, too.

But he basically was the one that set the philosophical structure for how to work on, you know, getting programs out -- developing home-based programs and then the other piece of the puzzle was when they got the Medicaid Waiver passed and that was a big one because that allowed federal money to flow into the -- into the nonprofits.

That was the turning point because then they could divert money from the institution into community programs, you know, and that was a big one because that - that’s -- that really jump started that whole process, which is well along.

And I haven’t kept track of it in the last ten years. I had some good former employees I know that were -- that came -- that worked themselves up into the echelon. I don’t know if you -- Rebecca Hilgendorf. Does not name ring a -- Rebecca was a great gal.

She was our director of resident services and then she moved on to be one of the regional supervisors of all the, you know, the care centers, you know, the home-based care centers and she was quite a powerhouse. But yeah she was a great --

Section 4: KAREN BREWSTER: So for the residents at Harborview, the type of care they got here versus what they would get when they went back home, which do you think served them better?

PAT LANDO: Good question. I had people as of yesterday come up and say I’m so damn mad, and this is here all these years, I see things going on in town here that I think is terrible.

We have the Frontier -- we have some local -- these people are drugies. They’re -- they came out (inaudible) and I just shrugged it off,

but they said I, you now, these people are, you know, are being taken care by blah, blah, blah, blah and so I can't -- I can’t speak of that. I don’t know what’s going on in the last 10, 12 years, but I do get some feedback from people that say what’s going on isn't what it is all supposed to be.

KAREN BREWSTER: But when you were with Harborview and you were transferring people back into their communities --
PAT LANDO: We would like to think that what went on was better.

That they got, you know, the real -- I mean we had people -- I know two -- in fact, I see them in the swimming pool every day. They were paying people like fifty grand a year to take care of a client in their own home, big money.

And then they'd rebuild the house. They’d redo the bathroom and make it, you know, accessible and so, you know, there -- then we have at least, I don’t know how many are in town, but I’m guessing at least a dozen or more ex-Harborview clients are still in town. A few of them have passed away.

Section 5: KAREN BREWSTER: They stayed here?
PAT LANDO: Stayed here.
KAREN BREWSTER: They didn't go back to their home --
PAT LANDO: No, they stayed here and I see them today. In fact, the ones I see in the swimming pool every -- every week.

KAREN BREWSTER: That’s interesting that -- do you know why they chose to stay and not go back --
PAT LANDO: No family.
KAREN BREWSTER: Okay.

PAT LANDO: And I can tell you that some families do not want them back and that’s the bitter, you know, they don’t -- they’re not -- they don’t -- they've been estranged for so many years, they don’t want them back.

They may have -- they may have been deceased, but I know for a fact a couple families went to the governor’s office when I tried to pressure them, will you consider being a guardian for your child, they didn't want to be -- they didn't -- it was gone.

It was -- they had, you know, I think there was something in their minds that they -- they did not want to deal with it and so it's a lot to do with being the -- you know, how the philosophy of it and then the actuality of it, you know, there’s some --
KAREN BREWSTER: Right, well that's what I was gonna ask you.
PAT LANDO: There’s some disparity of it, you know.

And there’s a grandiosity to the -- to some of these folks and I call them left wingers, you know, that are out there thinking that this -- they've got -- they’re closer to God because they’re doing these wonderful things.

And I think they are doing some wonderful things, but I think some of it is the part that they -- the accountability part is the one that’s, you know, who knows what goes on in -- in these private homes and I think for the most part they’re done well, but I’m -- I cannot speak to it as I have not been around it for a long time.

But it’s not sometimes as -- as great as what you might think.

Section 6: It may be -- may be wonderful, but I get mixed -- I have had mixed messages from people that have been, you know, in the -- but they certainly have made the transition, you know, and as you know the shutting down institutions have been going on for a long time.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. It was a philosophical change.
PAT LANDO: It gets started out in New York.

The famous big suit in New York. It started with the Kennedy’s. I could tell you a little story. Eunice Shriver came off a boat one day here in Valdez and walked in our back door. How does that grab you, huh?

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.
PAT LANDO: As you know she is the one that started Special Olympics, you know.
KAREN BREWSTER: Right.
PAT LANDO: And I got a call saying well we got Eunice Shriver here at the Harborview.

We had Walter Cronkite come through here during the oil spill days. That was another chapter that was interesting for somebody.

Section 7: Because of that we went through the same kind of craziness during the oil spill that we went through --
KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, right.
PAT LANDO: During the oil. I mean it was wild, wild.

I mean thousands and thousands people came in and, of course, employees left, you know, not all but the most (inaudible).
KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah I forgot Harborview was still operating.

PAT LANDO: Oh, yeah, yeah, it was -- I mean it was a crazy, crazy time. So we weathered that one, too, and again all I can say is that we had a very -- almost all of our department heads stayed with us right up to the bitter end and the people I know well to this day.

We had about fifteen folks that retired with me or maybe it was more closer to twenty-five, you know, that were strong, strong people and they kept the place going, you know, and they’re the ones that, you know, so that -- it was that kind of a infrastructure of humanity that kept the place stable.

So stability I guess and I guess the fact that I hung around may have had something to do with and you kind of got to know everybody and you knew how everything worked and you kept the family together.

And that kept things kind of perking along and so that’s the -- I guess if you want to think about what I felt good about I guess I felt that I’d -- we took care of people in a I think a pretty humane way and provided a service that wasn't there before.

And then, you know, we knew we were becoming archaic and you know we were becoming passé and, you know, we weren't fitting the mold and that's why I wanted to transition to the corrections program, which I thought made some sense.

But our dear fathers in town here at least I always thought -- they all said unanimously they wanted this corrections to happen, but it never did. In a passive aggressive way they let it kind of slide away.

Section 8: KAREN BREWSTER: For the residents who came from Morningside to Harborview with Lynette McCoy.
PAT LANDO: Yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: How did they transition? Morningside, sort of, is described as being more open and gardens they could walk around versus Harborside -- Harborview in that time was fairly restrictive?

PAT LANDO: I can’t --
KAREN BREWSTER: Do you know how they adjusted?
PAT LANDO: Speak to how Morningside was. All I -- my -- what I was told about Morningside was that it was a bit of a jungle, you know. It was old institutional care and I did -- I was never down there so I can’t tell you, but it was --

KAREN BREWSTER: But do you know how those residents adjusted from one institution to the next --
PAT LANDO: I would say we didn't -- they did well.

I mean the early days were tough because I mean they had -- I know we -- you know, the restraint stuff was going on more than it would've gone because they didn't have -- they didn't know any -- we didn't have any other avenues to --

but when we got into the educational model and we tried to work out of that we gave them, you know, if you don’t -- it’s like taking care of a -- your pet pooch, you know. If you tie him in a house and you’re going to have problems, you know. So if you don’t involve them and engage them, you know, you’re going to deal with the negative behaviors and that’s what happens, you know.

And it's true with any kid you take care of or try to raise. If you don’t provide outlets and educational or whatever going on they’re going to -- they’re going to get attention one way or another and they will do it with the most negative thing you can possibly imagine.

And we had God knows how many different anomalies of humanity here and genetic flaws. We had a group come down here and spend a week once trying to identify all of the different genetic diagnostic stuff.

I mean all the Prader-Willi syndrome. I mean all these different strange genetic things are, you know, they just -- they spent going through their books trying to identify -- what we really didn't get into was a lot of the alcohol syndrome stuff because that was not really known much about, but you can bet that from the villages there was a lot of that going on.

A lot -- the other thing that was going on that no one really talked about much was a lot of the close incest type stuff that could have gone on in the villages. We know that occurred in some of these villages. St. Paul Island and the Pribilof Islands and those, we -- you know, some strange, you know, things came out of the -- of those kind of unions and.

But, yeah there was lots of stuff that went on that -- a lot of closed head injuries we dealt with later on and that was mostly in the dementia unit, but we had some folks that came in that...

KAREN BREWSTER: We talked about the families that may or may not have visited and may or may not have wanted their children back with them. For the children here, how did they adjust to being away from their families? Is that a problem?

PAT LANDO: Well and I -- given what I remember and know, they were estranged for so many -- for so long I don’t think it made a difference.

The other thing you should know is that the first population here was as I think I already said was quite high functioning and I mean the group that came up from Baby Louise Haven were extremely low. I’m talking very low. I’m talking functioning less than two years of age. Major disabilities.

No -- none verbal, none mobile, I mean really -- and a lot of them we were able to get back, you know, they were laying in kind of pen-like -- when I went down there I remember that. They weren't, you know, they weren't allowed to walk. So we -- the first thing we did was get them, you know, trying to get them mobile and get them walking and we had special wheelchairs.

So we tried to get, you know, get into that and some of them were able to get them on their feet, but for the most part they were really low level functioning. I mean we’re talking IQ if you want to get into IQ stuff, you know, probably be the low 20’s, you know, developmentally very, very low.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right, so they weren't aware as you say, (inaudible) --
PAT LANDO: No, no.
KAREN BREWSTER: But later years when -- when children from villages might have been brought here --
PAT LANDO: There wasn't --
KAREN BREWSTER: Directly, once you were an all Alaska facility.

Section 9: PAT LANDO: Admissions were always controlled -- often, you know, the greater bulk of them did come in from Morningside. We did have groups, you know, not groups -- more individuals that came from API that were most of the time they were dual diagnosed, you know, they had a mental health label on them and then they had a developmentally disability label on them.

And they were usually a handful to deal with. So they -- we often got those referrals from API. API wasn't particularly a model of any good things.

I've been around API. I’m sure maybe it is much better than it used to be, but in the early days they were strictly the old psychiatric -- medicate them up.

First thing we did with our clients and I can tell you almost to the one, they had them so medicated up that they were zombiefied and we used to take -- it was the first thing we would do is wean them off all their medications and we’d find out --

we used to get people in there that, I mean, they couldn't walk, talk or and we would get them off their medications and the lights would come on and we, you know, we had remarkable changes. Then we’d get them out of here. We would move them out.

I remember a guy from Fort Yukon that came in here. He would -- he didn't talk for six months and all of a sudden after taking him off all those meds, we got him back and he -- we got him back to a provider in Anchorage, you know.

So the more docs, unfortunately, you get around the more medication you got. That’s a given. And the more docs you see the more meds you get on and the more and that’s -- you call about treatment -- psychiatric treatment is a bit of a joke as far as I’m concerned, has been forever.

Treatment is getting them pills and doing what? Providing some counseling whatever, but it's been overblown. But we used to see a lot of those and that may have changed some, but generally they were overmedicated just because it was easier for the staff.

KAREN BREWSTER: When you got new patients, not from API, but just, you know, from a community or some place, were they voluntary or were they brought to you?

PAT LANDO: Yeah, they were -- yeah, no, no, they were a -- done voluntary. We may have -- I was thinking back a lot -- there could have been a few commitments.

But, certainly admissions were very fil -- were very slow even -- even during the heyday because we had a very fixed population and they usually were often screened through API.

But, yeah, we did have some families that brought them down, but during that time Hope Cottages was really going, you know, and they -- things were happening up there. So there was some alternatives that weren't there before.

KAREN BREWSTER: I was just going to say there was a reputation, true or not I don’t know, that people were brought by the state against their will into an institution.

PAT LANDO: Early on that was true. I think I told you they used to ship them out to Morningside and that was -- I think I told you the inside, outside or Morningside was the big -- was the -- was a catch phrase, you know.

I mean if you were acting a little crazy or a little loony, you end up getting put on an airplane and dragged out of state and that was true --

KAREN BREWSTER: And that wasn't the case for Harborview?
PAT LANDO: No, not at all. We never took anybody against their will.

And again particularly because I was cognizant of that. I worked in a psychiatric facility before, you know, I went through the commitment stuff and I knew all about the commitment rules.

So we, in fact, I don’t think it was possible to commit someone to Harborview given when we changed our designation we were no longer under that same -- we would not fall into the same mental health laws as the old -- see the umbrella was we were classified I think initially similar to API.

Under the old -- we changed that to a -- to our -- when we became, you now, accredited. That was you had to be very clear that, you know, admissions were done.

You had to have a guardian and go through a whole admission process which covered all of this kind of thing so you couldn't take anybody unless you really made sure they were appropriate, that they met some criteria and were, you know, the level of care that we were at.

Intermediate care is very -- very distinctive. Full nurse -- full scale nursing care is a whole separate bag, you know. If you’re full medical, you have to have a pretty solid medical diagnosis done or fall into skilled nursing and we did not provide skilled nursing.

So the ICFMR thing was quite distinctively spelled out and it would have precluded, at least in my memory, to anyone being committed down here, you know, so.

Section 10: KAREN BREWSTER: And then, what about the City of Valdez and its community here, how was the relationship between the people of Valdez and Harborview? You said they were alot of employees but --

PAT LANDO: They would cut off their arm to have it back, let me tell you that. We -- the budget, not only the budget but it was -- the town embraced and that’s a good word to throw around -- embraced the, you know, the -- our clients went to every possible thing in town.

I mean every fricking, you know, thing that happens at the Civic Center. We have this great big Civic Center or the ball games or whatever, you know, they were welcomed and there was always Harborview clients and residents that went to every activity in town.

They used to go shopping all the time. In fact, the poor lady that's trying to keep her store open -- I mean I think it probably made a difference.

Each client had X amount of dollars to spend each month, you know, there was personal needs accounts and they would -- we would go down and they would buy stuff at the stores for themselves, you know, their personal clothing and stuff. So there was a lot of money spent here in the local community.

That has hurt a lot of people. Our budget up -- was up in the eight million dollar range at one time. That money was spent all here because as you probably know your budget -- about ninety percent of your budget is all personnel.

And people for the most part they do go to Anchorage, but most of their money is spent here in town. So that was a big chunk of change that was spent locally here that was no longer there and then the clients’ interactions, you know.

So peop -- we -- I can’t even think of an incident where a client was mistreated or not well received because everybody knew everybody. Everybody had family that worked there, you know. It was all -- everybody was in bed with each other and in that way the town is kind of incestuous in that way.

You know, and it can be a downer because you can’t get away from them, but there is that intimacy that comes with the way the town is so tight knit.

KAREN BREWSTER: And you think that was a benefit to the residents?
PAT LANDO: Oh, of course.

I mean if you can go down the street and people aren't going to, you know, sneer at you or treat you like you’re some kind of a -- you know, people were used to seeing the, you know, some of them had all kinds of anomalies and, you know, weren't particularly attractive and some --

but they -- I don’t think I ever had a complaint about anyone ever being -- so all I can say is the town was always receptive to our people.

You know, -- they -- for economic reasons, but I think there also was the personal reasons, I mean, they got to know the clients. We opened up the store, which is still there today. The Second Time Around Store that Eva Dunning took over -- the Frontiers -- Frontier Services offer.

Anyway, it was a -- we had the clients work there and they still work there today. Where we -- it was the Second Time Around Store where the clients worked there and they had them --

KAREN BREWSTER: I also heard that there were families that maybe brought Harborview residents home, into their homes. Did that happen?

PAT LANDO: I’m sure it did, you know, and they had them over for visits, you know, took them home for visits. They got very close to them. I mean these people were taking care of them 24 hours a day, you know, and for years on end they became very -- so, yeah, there was a lot of that.

And then some of them became, you know, when things started to separate out, they became, you know -- I know one -- at least one or two that opened up, you know, their private homes and became, you know, they actually got a contract with the state for services you know.

And they’d get paid X amount of dollars to take care of the client on a 24 hour basis, which is a tough, tough duty, but they do that respite built into that. But there’s a lot of our people did.

Most of our staff moved away, you know, left little by little, retired and pulled up stakes and we still have a few people around town I see, but a lot of them did leave.

But all I can say is over the -- if you talk to anybody in town about Harborview, unless I'm mistaken, they’ll tell you it's the best thing that ever happened to Valdez and the clients, you know, were treated well and I think no one can ever dispute that. I would have heard about it believe me.

Section 11: KAREN BREWSTER: Were there certain -- we talked before there was that debate of institutional versus home care within the state education and Harborview was criticized.

PAT LANDO: Oh, it always -- sure. You’re always criticized for that just because you are what you are, you know. Institutions are inherently evil, you know and I --

the problem is and I think you’re seeing if you know and you probably know, some or one thing about this, but they deinstitutionalize all these big state hospitals.

You know where they ended up don’t you? Well they ended up in prison. I forget how many -- now your prisons are full of what? What percent of mentally ill people are in prisons right now or on the streets or dead?

So there was, you know, there's been some rethinking about that and if you go into the bigger cities where they have deinstitutionalized people, you’ll find these are the street -- the street people that are sitting in the gutters or they’re locked up.

And that’s happened in a lot of big cities, as you know if you've been around the world a little bit and I have. But, so yeah it hasn't been as, you know, I think it’s -- it’s probably been the right thing to do but I think there in some ways people have seconded guessed that maybe we've gone too far in this thing.

That there has to be a -- some kind of safety net somewhere. The standard joke was, you know, you send them to API you know what happens? They’re back on the street two days later.

Yeah, I have enough people that are sent up there for six different times and they evaluate them and put them back on the street until they kill themselves or something happens to them.

KAREN BREWSTER: Or get picked up again.
PAT LANDO: Picked up again. So it’s, you know, the revolving door of, you know -- or they commit a crime and then they lock them up.

So there is no, you know, nirvana, you know. So there's the daydreamers and then there’s the reality people, you know, that you kind of sort of the -- so I used to be more I guess in the middle of trying to balance the two sides knowing that I wouldn't want to be locked up in an institution.

I wouldn't stay a day, so I walked away from my back surgery with my IV in my hand and said I’m going moose hunting. That’s the truth.

Section 12: KAREN BREWSTER: I want to go back a little bit to the transition period where you’re talking about the fighting with the nonprofits and all of the feuds --

PAT LANDO: I wouldn't call it fighting. I would just say we -- we would just have to take the brunt of the attack, you know.

KAREN BREWSTER: The governor’s special council and that whole time period --
PAT LANDO: The governor’s council for -- yes, they were a very, very active group that they were the -- they were the -- kind of the -- spearheaded most of the activity.

And they were very, very vocal and they were very strong lobbyists and they were always --

KAREN BREWSTER: Did you have allies? Because you've sort of talked about you're the opposition, did you have allies, too?

PAT LANDO: The allies were the parents. I used to have families on their nickel would fly down to Juneau, on their own and they wanted to hear, of course, but these people were damn mad that they were, you know, they said my kid -- I like the way my kid is being taken care of and I don’t trust that what you guys are going to do is going to be any better.

And I know I can think of some family that off the top of my head -- they could be gone by now but they used to come down and testify, but they never got much attention because they didn't really want that to be -- to be heard of. It was very, you know, it was very controlled and it was hard to find -- and I personally was told to keep my mouth shut, you know.

KAREN BREWSTER: By the -- whom?
PAT LANDO: By my superiors because if you didn't play -- play the game -- the game was if you don’t -- if you’re not playing the game with the nonprofits, you don’t have a job. Those are all appointees down there.

Section 13: KAREN BREWSTER: Well, that -- that makes me think about the management structure of Harborview. It was a state institution.
PAT LANDO: Correct.

KAREN BREWSTER: And so you reported to whom?
PAT LANDO: I reported -- well --
KAREN BREWSTER: That position --
PAT LANDO: To various people and that didn't bounce well.
KAREN BREWSTER: The position, the head of the Department of Mental Health?

PAT LANDO: No, well they created a position of -- actually they had the Division of the Medical Director of Mental Health Division, Director of Mental Health, was probably Dr. Schrader, you mentioned.

KAREN BREWSTER: At some point it was Dr. Schrader --
PAT LANDO: Yeah he was early on. He was in there for about ten years, but after that they went through every year they had a new medical director.

They created a position that was Bob Gregovich who was in there for years, Dr. Robert Gregovich, great guy, liked to -- liked to be called doctor because he had a Ph.D. behind his name. I’m sorry Bob if you listen to that, but we used to always kid him about Dr. Bob.

Anyways, but yeah he was -- they actually created a position for -- to be in charge of Developmental Disabilities because the mental health was soled consumed with API. API were -- always dominated everything they did.

So they actually created a -- I forget what they actually called the position, but so Harbor -- so I was responsible to the -- to the coordinator of Developmental Services.

KAREN BREWSTER: For the State Division of Mental Health and Social Services?
PAT LANDO: Division of Mental Health, yes.
KAREN BREWSTER: Which is under Health --
PAT LANDO: Which is under Health and Social Services.
KAREN BREWSTER: Okay.

PAT LANDO: There was a time when for whatever reason it could have been with Margaret Lowe -- Margaret Lowe became commissioner at one time.
KAREN BREWSTER: Yes, she was.

PAT LANDO: And I actually was responsible directly to her for a while.
KAREN BREWSTER: Okay.

PAT LANDO: (Inaudible) to the commissioner and then the next step is the governor, I guess. So they a lot of -- there was a lot of change and then Bob came down with I think his own medical condition and retired and I think Mike Renfro came in for a number of years.

And I don’t what happened after that, but there was lots of comings and goings of people down there and we just kind of did our own thing and tried to -- so, yes, I'm -- we had to --

Section 14: KAREN BREWSTER: You were part of the state bureaucracy --
PAT LANDO: We had to be, yes, unfortunately. And unfortunately our biggest problem was the bureaucracy.

I’ll tell you how bad it got. You know I had complete line authority for years, you know, I don’t know how many years. I could hire, fire, whatever and then little by little because the bureaucracy grew in Juneau so -- and to my estimate it was a joke, you know.

I think they had 50 people when I left down there that you could hardly do anything without having someone down there sign off on a piece of paper.

The worse it ever got they put a commissioner in there who happened to be a lieutenant colonel out of the Air Force, who happened to be also black and he --

we used to have to fill out 14 pages of EEO stuff in order to hire an aide and we were at a point we had to have aides we had to get them on -- on the line and, you know, and he'd had to personally have them go through his desk to make sure we had dutifully covered all the, you know, EEO requirements to make sure that we had covered -- you had to get preferential consideration to the ethnic issues which I thought --

now you’re taking my toys away.

So that -- so that was the worse as it got and he didn't last more than about a year. But truly the bureaucracy grew in Juneau to the point where our functioning, the field office was able -- and then when they put in the computers, the computer world came on board.

I mean that was another, you know, whole bunch of employees that could sit there and play with their -- their computer.

KAREN BREWSTER: So that made it worse?
PAT LANDO: I would say that it didn't make it any better.

They thought -- everyone thought that this computer stuff was going to be and I, of course, have my own biases about that, but the fact is that it did take away from the efficiency of your operation, you know.

My mode of operating was always to delegate. You know you get good people in and then you give them the authority to do what they need to do. You don’t micromanage from down in Juneau where they don’t even, you know, they might come by once a year and everyone wants to be boss, you know, and you want to be a boss because they create their own jobs.

At least that’s how I saw it. They’d come in there and I have a job now and now I have to get -- pull in all this stuff so that I have a job because I have to approve this, this and this and this and that makes me boss.

And that’s what went on Juneau. And that happens in all bureaucracies. I don’t know if you've ever read -- there’s an interesting book called When -- When in Doubt, Mumble.
KAREN BREWSTER: No.
PAT LANDO: And so it’s a critique on how bureaucracies don’t function.
KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

PAT LANDO: And it’s the old Peter Principle stuff, you know, where everything kind of floats to the top. Crap has a way of floating to the top.
KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

PAT LANDO: And that’s some interesting stuff because I used to, you know, used to sit and kind of say well these crazy guys were telling us how to run business and I, you know, I had to put up with it, but I didn't like it.

And it did take away -- and that is why I mentioned my Wyoming experience here last year when I could actually go down and talk to a field person who had --

KAREN BREWSTER: And your frustrations with that bureaucracy did that affect the residents and the services they were getting?

PAT LANDO: Sure because, you know, when you couldn't hire an aide, you know -- to wait for someone to sign off on something in Juneau what do you do? You have to put somebody to work overtime, which increases the costs.

I mean when we had -- we were -- during oil times -- oil spill times and during the -- we were going through -- I mean it was crazy. I mean we’re talking people were quitting, you know --

KAREN BREWSTER: Because they could make --
PAT LANDO: They could walk over and get a hundred thousand dollar job, you know, and we were paying good money, but not -- we couldn't compete with those numbers.

You had to get people on the line and you could not sacrifice, you know, you had to have people there to take care of clients 24 hours a day and you couldn't wait for someone to approve it down in Juneau.

And the personnel system in particular is -- is I’m sure it’s not any better. I mean it's -- you know it’s mired and you call for the registry and then you have to clear the registry and then you have to go through all the red -- it’s all these different steps in order to hire somebody and we don’t have time to do that. We need to get them on line and get on with it, you know.

So the state system in itself, I always found that a bit of a -- it wasn't -- the clients weren't the problem it was the system that was the problem.

So my job was how do you outsmart the system and I -- there's certain ways you do that, you know, and oftentimes it’s by getting to know the right person down there and often it would be a secretary or, you know, the right person that you could call that would walk a piece of paper through.

KAREN BREWSTER: So for the bureaucrats they may not have been particularly fond of you if you were trying to buck the system all the time?

PAT LANDO: Probably not. I really didn't probably give a damn actually, huh? And I was able to survive. I didn't get fired so that was good news, so.

Section 15: KAREN BREWSTER: Well, as your population went down at Harborview and you had trouble hiring staff, did you have to cut the services to the residents like no more --

PAT LANDO: Well, that was the balancing act, see. You -- you have to maintain your accreditation. And your accreditation requires that you have all these players in place.

KAREN BREWSTER: And all the programs.
PAT LANDO: You have to have a nurse on every shift. You have to, you know, a certain ratio. You have to have all the program stuff has got to be going on.

In the meantime, you’re being "held your feet to the fire" -- that’s a Dick Brandton word by the way. Dick was good on throwing out things. He also liked "dead babies in the street". That’s the only way -- that was his -- I never forget that.

He said the only way you get the bureaucracy to move is if there are "dead babies in the street" and that -- that was the one I always remembered. If you have to create a crisis in order for the bureaucracy to move and I always -- I always threw that one out when I could.

So yes, that was a balancing act between -- between keeping your accreditation going and then trying to get the bureaucracy to -- to provide, you know, what you needed to do the job. So you reach a point where you can’t do that. I mean you reach that tipping point.

And, you know, and that and the numbers start to eat you up and then finally I say whatever year that was. I think -- they gave us a three year time frame to basically move out, you know, X amount of staff.

You know, and yeah it was a pro -- we did it in a programmed way in which we X amount, so we cut the units down less and less, but you still had a great big overhead because I mean my God you had all this other stuff that had to be there, you know, so.

KAREN BREWSTER: And all the residents got moved out how?
PAT LANDO: Systemically. We had -- they --
KAREN BREWSTER: To where?

PAT LANDO: Yeah, they had a plan and they would struggle like hell to get them out at a certain time, but yeah, there was -- it was orchestrated to have X amount out by so, you know, by such and such a time, which put pressure on the nonprofits to come up with, you know, programs and they had to get, you know, find homes and they had to buy homes up there or get staff and do all that stuff.

So that took like three years at least to get that occurred. And we worked with it. We didn't fight it. You know, we knew that this was the way it was going to happen so we were -- I can say that we did it despite the fact that we were able -- everyone was losing their job.

We did it I think with the clients’ interest in mind, you know. We actually went up there and sent staff up there, helped them, you know, get oriented to the clients so that the clients, you know, they weren't getting somebody that didn't know all their little idiosyncrasies.

So yeah we, you know, I think we did it honorably even though we knew that it was our own demise. So, I mean, I think we did a -- we did a pretty admirable job of working with them with the process. All the time I was hoping that we could get a, you know, an alternate population, but --

Section 16: KAREN BREWSTER: And now you said that the buildings were torn down, is that what you said?

PAT LANDO: They -- it became an albatross. They continued to operate the community hospital, but then they had this whole big vestigial organ.

There’s a good word for you, huh? An organ that serves no function, hanging there, but that organ costs a lot of money because the building was huge to keep going, even though it was shut down. They did move into some of the offices.

A certain group in town really got on the bandwagon to build a new hospital even though it’s a bit crazy, but they did and if you go by it, it’s a beautiful building. So they actually built a brand new hospital and then they had a -- and I was --

KAREN BREWSTER: On the site of where the old one was?

PAT LANDO: Right next to it and that is run by Providence now and it’s a very beautiful place and they have I mentioned to you the long-term program there that’s -- that’s very expensive, and -- but it carries the place.

And then they were left with this huge structure and then I think there was -- I was actually gone during that time where they were arguing about who’s going to be responsible for it. The city said well we’re not going to pay to have it torn down and I think the state appropriated -- I think it was almost like two million dollars to tear the place down.

So it was like, literally a fortress. It was built to be there. It was -- the cement in that place was -- I mean --

KAREN BREWSTER: And what’s happened to that property now?

PAT LANDO: It looks like hell. If you go over there today you’ll see this big expansive land. We used to have -- at one time it was -- looked really nice.

We had beautiful lawns. We had a -- we had a farm in the back where we actually a farm -- a little farming thing we had going on.

We had a little bit of artistic thing that was built. I don’t know if you were around when we had to have a percent for art.
KAREN BREWSTER: Yep.

PAT LANDO: Okay. We had a guy from California build this thing that still is kind of there. It was a mound that had some I don’t know what his brainstorm was, but anyway the grounds looked very nice and we spent a lot of time making the place look very presentable.

And the place was always clean and the place never smelled. If you have ever walked in institutions, even nursing homes, the first thing that hits you is the smell.

You know, urine has a way of saturating everything and you can always -- they always call it the smell test. If you have been around institutions, you walk in you can always tell if the place has been well kept up just by the odor you get and our place never smelled or if it did, it was not a very --

and so we had a great housekeeping staff and we were very -- so anyway we took great pride in keeping the place up.

So now it's kind of sad that it's just an empty lot and the building was, you know, again it was the way it was designed it was very, very expensive to maintain.

Section 17: KAREN BREWSTER: I want to go back a little bit to you personally and Harborview is a big part of your career and what that has meant to you, working there?

PAT LANDO: Well, I would like to forget most of it even though I had, you know, I met a lot of good friends and God I still have contact with many, many people that I've known.

I think I should have left a lot sooner, you know, in terms of my own career because I think I stuck around too long, but things happened, you know. Kids grew up. Kids were in college, you know, pretty soon you have to pay for college stuff, you know and everything kind of stair cased in and then they started --

then they started throwing out early retirement packages, you know, that occurred for numbers of years and they kept kind of baiting you to stick in the system.

I did not want to go to Juneau. I did not want to go to Anchorage and I did not want to go to Fairbanks, although I did apply for a job up in Fairbanks.

So I kind of reached a point where it was kind of either jump ship now or wait and get and then I felt a certain obligation I think even though I think towards the end I knew I should move, I felt I should probably be there and kind of help as long as I put the place together, in my own way I thought I should be there to take it apart.

So it was kind of a funny feeling, you know, of spending all that time building up a staff and then basically tearing it all apart.

So that was kind of a downer, you know, in that sense and that part of it I still remember is -- I remember turning lights out, New Year’s Eve walking through that place and turning lights out, you know. So how did you spend, you know -- what I'd do, I spent 30 -- 28 years walking these crazy halls and then to shut the joint down was kind of sad, so.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well I think it might be a stressful job running --
PAT LANDO: Stress --
KAREN BREWSTER: A facility like that and how that would affect home life and personally?

PAT LANDO: Valdez has its own stress levels. That’s why they call it Val disease, you know. Huh?

Read some of the old Gold Rush poems.

You know there’s a certain -- their being sequestered in a certain area like Valdez has a certain, you know, psychological thing that goes on. But yeah it’s -- the stress was more from staff than clients for sure.

You know, keeping the staff happy, keeping little bickering’s and -- that go on. Dealing with a hundred and some women, how does that sound? Huh?

At one point I told you we were down to two males in the whole building and women at times, you know, can be a little bit difficult. You get them together and they somehow.

And I’m not being sexist but I know -- women take direction from men better, as you probably know or don’t know, then women directing other women.

That may be -- you know, I don’t know if you buy into it or not, but I used to somehow able to get through that.

I often amaze myself that I didn't get, you know, God knows you come in in the morning and then someone having bad days and you know you have all these people to deal with, you know. So yeah, you had your bad days, but overall there was more good days than bad ones, so.

Section 18: KAREN BREWSTER: So, yeah, what gave you the greatest joy or greatest satisfaction from working there?

PAT LANDO: I think, as I already said, I think the fact that we could sit back and say we did good things to people for the most part. I’m sure we did some disservice to people, but I think we did, you know, provide a good services given what we had going on.

And we treated people I think with some respect and dignity and I think I treated the staff with that same respect and I don’t think you could have a staff that would say otherwise.

So that part of it, you know, I think I was fair with everybody, probably too easy with some people.

I would let some people get off the hook that I shouldn't have but it was hard to fire people unless they really did some terrible things, you know, you had to --

KAREN BREWSTER: It sounds like you -- yeah, you were very close to the staff. What about with the residents? Did you get to know the residents?
PAT LANDO: Probably not as close.

I’m not the warm and fuzzy kind of guy, as you probably could pick up, although I have my side so I know, you know, I don’t go around squeezing and hugging kids and things too well even my own, but no, every day I was down there. I mean I walked the halls.

I mean I was -- as I say most people in my position were out in the going to meetings. They all loved to go to meetings, you know.

Call someone in Juneau. I’m sure you work at the university. They love to sit around meetings. That’s all they do is sit in meetings.

I can tell you I was in the halls every day, every unit, every day. So, you know, I was in touch with them in that respect and I knew all the clients, of course.

I knew all their families, but in terms of, you know, my, you know, I wasn't out playing games with them and that kind of stuff, but I definitely was in touch with what was going on. I mean there is nothing I didn't miss.

I read thousands of records. Every day I reviewed all the records every day. We used to get 24 hour reports and all the records were sitting there.

I helped put all the medical records together when we first got there. We had no record system to speak of. So we actually put in -- I actually went and bought the damn things myself.

And we actually put, you know, where you basically break out all the different departmental stuff, you know, and we had no really good recordkeeping until we put it together.

So I was, you know, I wasn't estranged from the clients. I -- I, you know, I was there and that again was the part of -- the Valdez had the good and bad of it, you know. You were basically stuck here.

If you were in some other place, you wouldn't be here. You’d be down having lunch with some group thing and running around the town and going to Seattle for some convention or -- because that’s what they do and I know it’s -- that’s what -- I didn't make that many ventures away from town here, except for my own personal stuff that I would do.

Section 19: KAREN BREWSTER: And so Harborview shut down in ’99, you said?
PAT LANDO: Yeah, yeah.
KAREN BREWSTER: What have you been doing since you retired?
PAT LANDO: I've become a care provider.

KAREN BREWSTER: You retired from your career?
PAT LANDO: No, I went -- I'm also a taxidermist and I’m sure you’d love to see my taxidermy shop.

I'm sure I got a whole bunch -- and I have hunted all over the world and I've done lots of -- lots of stuff that I shouldn't probably have done, but -- and I still do it even though my --

but interestingly I've come full circle, my poor little mother sat in that room right back there for five years and she was, you know, she came up here and broke her arm the first day she was here and that was the end of the story.

And I was the only next of kin that she had, so I -- I, you know, I -- it was a long five years and you know I can -- and this house is very small and she was a very tenacious lady and very -- anyways, I was for the last five years I was a care provider.

And you know the story, I, you know, at the very end I had to bring her out of state to find -- to find care.

KAREN BREWSTER: So you didn't continue in social work?
PAT LANDO: No, I toyed with it and my wife said why don’t you go out and do something, you know, because I still had I think a few -- a few things to offer.

KAREN BREWSTER: You said you were fairly young, so --
PAT LANDO: Fifty-five, yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: But you chose not to go --
PAT LANDO: I chose to be lazy.

Actually I chose to, we -- we went off to Montana and we made trips to check on our mothers. We had two mothers still alive and my wife’s mother.

We spent time commuting -- commuting back and forth for two years until her mother passed away. Then we came back here and then my mother came up and that was the end of story.

So five years of that has been and I literally was here trapped in this house. I shouldn't say that on camera, but at times that’s basically the way -- way it was.

KAREN BREWSTER: We've covered a lot. I know you had made some notes of your own. Have we covered all of that?

PAT LANDO: No, I basically scribbled some of the vernacular that I forgot about, you know some of the -- some of the titles and stuff and all of which I’ve touched on, you know. I just wrote down the different, you know, we had certain acronyms for, you know.

KAREN BREWSTER: I just wanted to make sure we covered everything?
PAT LANDO: No, no, no, I just wanted to -- I forgot, you know.

Section 20: KAREN BREWSTER: Well, actually one other question that occurs to me now in terms of your residents and the things they did in getting out of the facility

and you mentioned they went to school and recreational opportunities. Valdez is this amazing place. Did they go on field trips? Did they go and do activities?

PAT LANDO: I think I mentioned it, yeah, they were out doing stuff all the time. You know, we had at least two or three different rec therapists and part of their deal was, you know, they had their a whole itinerary and one was the shopping thing.

They’d go down to whatever was going on in town they would participate in. They’d be at every movie or civic activity. I don’t know if you've seen our big Civic Center. We got a Civic Center for the size of a town of 50,000, you know and there's lots of --

KAREN BREWSTER: You mentioned the farm. Did they have a garden?

PAT LANDO: We had a garden. We had animals. We had a whole bunch of stuff in the back that was kind of neat that was -- we had a barn.

We had a -- and I just actually I was going through some stuff the other day and I was throwing stuff away, pictures of our farm back there that was -- but yeah, we grew and the kids would go out there and the whole idea Eva Dunning, who now is head of the Frontier Services here in town, she helped pioneer that farm.

But I thought it was -- I think it was my brainstorm initially, but anyways we thought -- I said it would be great to have something for the kids to go out and do --
KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

PAT LANDO: And monkey around outside and you have to work with the snow conditions, but yeah, it was -- we had pigs, we had goats, we had chickens.

I think -- we had a big garden they’d play with and you know and they’d go out and monkey around.

KAREN BREWSTER: Were the residents physically able to do things --
PAT LANDO: Some were --
KAREN BREWSTER: Like skiing or hiking or things like that, fishing?

PAT LANDO: They -- fishing big time, right in the back yard here.
KAREN BREWSTER: Okay.
PAT LANDO: Bob Bassett, who owned this house, in the summertime this was a Shangri-La.

He’d go out the back here and catch more fish off the dock here than I mean literally there are thousands of salmon come in here. So the kids used to come out here and fish.

Some weren’t, you know, obviously it depends on the level of functioning. You know some were able to do it and some were not, but I got -- all I can tell you is that they probably got more involvement here than they would -- everyone says oh how great it is to be up in Anchorage.

You go out in Anchorage you get hit by a car, you know. Here they can go downtown, you can walk around and stumble around and we have a bicycle path, you know and you can actually get around and do some things that you can’t go in big cities. I can take my dog out for a walk. I can do things here that--

KAREN BREWSTER: But when the residents left the Harborview facility, were they -- could they go out on their own and walk the beach or they were supervised or how did that --

PAT LANDO: In other places?
KAREN BREWSTER: No, here. In Harborview, if a resident wanted to go shopping or --
PAT LANDO: Right.
KAREN BREWSTER: Or wanted to go for a walk?

PAT LANDO: Would they have to be, yeah.
KAREN BREWSTER: They were supervised.
PAT LANDO: Oh, of course, of course. There was -- and I say the higher functioning ones we moved out very soon on our own before hand.

So what I’m saying what we were left with were the folks that were really impaired. We -- the dementia unit now is a little different. Now we had a really mixed bag in the dementia unit.

Section 21: I mean there was some folks that were -- we had several closed head injury people, automobile accidents and stuff that were very combative and then you know we dealt with that. There was some --

KAREN BREWSTER: How did -- how did you handle those patients with the developmentally disabled?
PAT LANDO: Well we -- they --
KAREN BREWSTER: Were they in a separate unit?

PAT LANDO: They dealt with them as a separate entity, you know.

There wasn't too much -- there wasn't too much comingling with that, you know. There was -- there may have been some, you know, but for the most part it was done separately because they were adults and they were, you know, different -- different things going on with them.

KAREN BREWSTER: Do you remember what years -- you said it was near the end?

PAT LANDO: Yeah, it was in the late -- I should know that. I would guess in the late 80’s or mid-80’s, ’85, ’86 something like that maybe.

It was called the Sourdough Unit and we had -- we had wonderful things with some. We -- there was a fellow that -- have you been on the Glenn Highway a lot, haven’t you, the -- what’s the -- the King Mountain Lodge right there, the fellow that built that?

The fellow that built the first house on Nancy Lake. He ended up down here because the Pioneer Home couldn't manage him. Great guy. Great family and, you know, he shouldn't have been down here, but they couldn't -- they bounced him out and so some of these really combative guys, you know, and there’s a stage in Alzheimer’s, you know, where you go through that combative stage.

We had the behavioral tools because we had been doing that kind of stuff for so long we were able to deal with that behavior much better than they could in the nursing homes threw up their hands. They don’t know what to do. All they can do is medicate him.

They don’t have -- they often don’t have the tools to deal -- they don’t have the behavioral background. So our whole emphasis was for so many years was that the educational mode. I mean everything. The school, the college stuff, all the con -- everything we had was based on modifying behaviors, you know, and dealing with that kind of stuff, you know, so it all came naturally.

Section 22: KAREN BREWSTER: And were the residents taught life skills for independent living?

PAT LANDO: Yeah. I think as -- and particularly in the OT department they had -- we had our own kitchen down there.

And Shannon -- Shannon Irish is head of the rehab services over in the new hospital. She heads up the whole rehab department.

She is a doll and she came in and she used to have a kid -- and Mary Melborn (phonetic) anyway two really nice gals, very smart. They had a kitchen thing where they’d teach them cooking skills and they were trying to get them ready to maybe get out and do some on their -- they wouldn't be on their own but they may be in a different setting.

So that was as I mentioned to you our -- in the facility the way it was originally set up was -- even over at the other hos -- or at the other school they had as setup over there for teaching some of those skills. They had kitchen facilities.

Again that building was designed for the Harborview clients, so it had very specific things, including a very exotic hydrotherapy pool that was a huge expense, you know, because of all the muscular problems and all the mobility problems that these folks have.

KAREN BREWSTER: And what was the reaction? Did all that money being spent for these few number of people --
PAT LANDO: Well --
KAREN BREWSTER: And then, had to close, I mean, not close but --

PAT LANDO: The wisdom of it and I was -- the fact and my good friend George Makowski (phonetic) was -- they knew that the time would come when we’d have to convert it so when they built it, they built it with the eye that they could convert it over.

So now it's a full, you know, the elementary school was closed. The old elementary school became the college, okay and then the Herman Hutchins School became a full-time elementary school.

And so you know and even though the population has gone down, its -- you know, it was converted easily over to a --

Section 23: KAREN BREWSTER: From a political perspective it has been criticized that that was -- the City of Valdez --
PAT LANDO: A ploy?
KAREN BREWSTER: Kind of took advantage?

PAT LANDO: Well, it could have been. It could have been a real -- I -- at the time we thought it was -- it made sense. I think -- I don’t know how the money came. I think there was some Mental Health money that may have been put into that.

The school did get criticized, I can tell you, early on because they were counting our students as full-time students and getting money for that.

And the fact of the matter was, early on they were only getting an hour or two and that was, you know, that was pretty shaky.

That was brought to their attention big time, you know, we -- I remember that was a long time ago but we said this is -- you guys are making money off of our clients.
KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

PAT LANDO: So that really spurred them to go into a full time, so they actually had a full day of school, but the school bus used to come over. We had a ramp set up for them.

They’d go on that school bus and they would go off. They’d be over there from nine o’clock until whatever two o’clock in the afternoon.

So they did get a full day of school, but initially yeah there was some shaky times when they were counting them as full-time students and were getting reimbursed for that so.

But that was way, way early on and that was -- that came up as an issue at the time. Sarah -- that’s just me.

KAREN BREWSTER: This is my last question.
PAT LANDO: Okay.

Section 24: KAREN BREWSTER: Would be, you know, we talked about Harborview met all this criticism for a certain time, you know, families may have felt their children were or were not being taken care of, how did you deal with that criticism personally?

PAT LANDO: Well first of all, families did not feel that way. I think I already said it a couple of times.

I don’t think I ever had a family member make a formal complaint nor did they ever come -- call me up and make a formal complaint.

We had one very bad incident and I won’t even get into it, but it was a bad one.

A bad assault of a client and the mother that, that -- she was one of the most vocal parent that we had and she could have taken us to the cleaners and she did not.

I was -- always to this day I said my God she could have taken us to, you know, and this guy got caught in the act of an assault thing --

KAREN BREWSTER: One resident to another resident?
PAT LANDO: Yes -- no, it was staff.
KAREN BREWSTER: Okay.

PAT LANDO: And it hit -- it hit the -- that was probably the worse of the days as far, you know, had the newspaper out here from Anchorage and oh God they were all over me, yeah.

But this woman and she was so vocal and she was on the Governor’s Council, but she never -- she took that in stride and I’m not sure why, you know. And she, you know, we took the guy to court and he ended up in jail and everything.

But yeah, she could've really made a thing of it and -- because it was, you know, a miscarriage, this guy did some terrible things to this kid, but she did not, you know, she could have really gone with it and she could have got an attorney. I mean that was the lowest point of any major incident other than that, I can -- we had very few issues.

We had one other concern that I -- we fired three guys, four guys over some abusive kind of stuff and that hit the fan. And they somehow got reinstated even though we went through a whole bunch of stuff including a court thing.

But yeah, given the thousands of folks we dealt with, that’s a pretty good record, you know, in terms of incidents, you know.

So I was lucky in that way, you know. I think we kept on top of it and so. But that’s, you know, those were two things that I think of and those were bad days and when those things hit the fan, you know, you got a lot of attention.

Section 25: KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah and that’s what I said within Alaska there’s a sentiment of negatively towards Harborview whether that’s correct or not. There’s a bit of that bias.

PAT LANDO: Yeah and I don’t why. First of all, you should understand and you may already understand this.

Valdez is considered to be the rich kids on the block. People are mad as hell that this oil money is coming in here.

When our kids go play basketball, mine surely did around the state, you know. They used to get booed, you know, because they, you know, these kids came out and the money that these people are making across the bay is crazy.

I mean they’re making money as doctors money -- they’re making $180,000 for sitting watching dials over there.

So the town is -- has got, you know, has always got the reputation of being the rich kid on the block and so that has something to do with it and you know, and I think I used to pick that up when our kids would play ball, you know.

Here comes the cocky kids from Valdez, you know, they think that they’re on top of the world. But when things were, you know, when money was flowing and everything was going so that has something to do with it.

That has something to do with it. You can’t fight the other part of it. The other part is, you know, its ingrained in the whole philosophy that institutions are inherent -- I think I’ve already said -- are inherently evil institution.

We are the, you know, and that’s the fact of the matter is we were not a bad institution and I think we were about as good -- if you have to be an institution, we were as good as they come.

And I think that’s and I don’t think you could find anyone that could tell you otherwise.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well I think that’s a great place to stop and unless --
PAT LANDO: And that’s the truth.
KAREN BREWSTER: Okay. So do you have anything else we -- I haven’t asked about?
PAT LANDO: No. That’s -- I think we've covered more than you probably wanted to cover.
KAREN BREWSTER: Okay, great, thank you very much.