California Enabled Elder Abuse - Open Letter to Assembly Member Mariko Yamada, Chair of the Aging and Long-Term Care Committee Assembly Member

Subject:  Stated Enabled Elder Abuse

To:  Assembly Member Mariko Yamada, Chair of the Aging and Long-Term Care Committee Assembly Member

Linda Halderman, Vice-Chair of the Aging and Long-Term Care Committee

Assembly Aging and Long-Term Care Committee
1020 N Street, Room 360A
Sacramento, California 95814
916.319.3990 phone
916.319.3884 fax

Subject:  Stated Enabled Elder Abuse

Honorable Mariko Yamada and Honorable Linda Halderman

The premise is that more laws and more regulations beget more bureaucracies, and more lobbyist such as the Financial Abuse Specialist Teams (FAST) teams, and less crime prevention. Or as I refer to State-Sponsored Eider Abuse -  What is needed is awareness and funding for investigators controlled at the local level. http://cotobuzz.blogspot.com/2012/08/coupled-to-be-arraigned-for-financial.html

I trust your will not only be receptive to the premise that California’s efforts in terms of preventing Elder Abuse have failed, but you will look into specific complaints below and take action:  On July 12, 2012 we contacted Chisorom Okwuosa and  Sarah Ludeman, Public Affairs Assistant Director California Department of Aging.  Our simple question to Ms. Ludeman was in essence, how does CDA know that the moneys allocated to elder abuse prevention are being used effectively?

While Ms. Ludeman was courteous, she had no idea.  She did refer me to Orange County Team Obbudsman Molly Davis – Ms. Davis stated she was not familiar with how to use metrics to manage for success, she was clearly inconvenienced by my call and threatened to hang up.  The second source provided by Ms. Ludeman never returned our emails and or telephone calls.

Debra Morrow, Division Manager Sacramento County Senior and Adult Services basically told us that what we were looking for was none of our business.

We contacted the City of Long Beach’s Record Coordinator and Theressa Graham basically told us where to go, whereas the National Center on Elder Abuse failed to respond to the following request:

While we understand that NCEA is not a reporting or investigation agency, it is funded by the taxpayers.  Hence, we would like to know how NCEA measures whether it is spending taxpayer funds.  In other words, specifically, can you provide metrics used to measure how effective NCEA has been for 2012?

For reference, we have asked a similar question to certain experts NCEA lists in its Expert Sources for Journalists  page:

 http://www.ncea.aoa.gov/ncearoot/Main_Site/FAQ/Resources_For_Professionals/Expert_Bios.aspx - so far not response, confirming our conclusion as listed in the email sent to these experts, forwarded as reference.

Additionally, the Orange County Council on Aging and other state actors in California presumably designed to prevent elder abuse have all failed to respond.

All  of this coupled with our prior research on elder abuse makes our rpremise self-evident:  California’s efforts to prevent elder abuse have not only failed, but these are actually being used as state-enable elder abuse tools. That might include the Aging and Long-Term Care Committee, unless you can convince us otherwise.

Look forward to your hearing from you with suggestions.

JL "Buzz" Aguirre, Publisher The CotoBuzz Journal

Freelance Investigative Journalist

www.cotobuzz.com

The mission of investigative journalism is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the status quo.

949-NEW-WEBO

FAX:  509-EKL-TUWL

C.C. Sarah, Ludeman

Doug Haubert. Long Beach City Prosecutor

Theressa  Graham, City of Long Beach Records Coordinator