VINITA, Okla. — “I’m just shocked at what I was reading,” said Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler.
He says someone in the mental health field alerted him to this request for proposal or RFP.
“I would never in my life imagine you would take the most difficult population that the Department of Mental Health that’s in my opinion their primary responsibility and try and off board that to somebody else,” said Kunzweiler.
The RFP is looking for a facility where people in its custody found to be not guilty by reason of insanity or mental illness to go.
The RFP says the place would need to “finish all necessary resources to provide up to 100 psychiatric treatment beds for the population.”
Here's the full RFP:
Kunzweiler has questions.
“Whose idea was this,” said Kunzweiler? “Who stands to benefit from it? And why didn’t you consult with the stakeholders.”
2 News wanted to know more about the proposal and the reason behind it, so we reached out to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.
In response, the public information manager said, “Currently, there are no updates to share. Should there be any developments or decisions made, we will provide the appropriate updates.”
“If you’re an agency and you’re going to publish that that strongly suggests to me that you’ve thought this thing out,” said Kunzweiler.
The current patients are housed at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita which Kunzweiler says has 216 beds.
Do you have something you think Naomi Keitt should look into?
You can email her at Naomi.Keitt@kjrh.com.
He questions where the money would come from to pay for this and if it’s safe.
“If that’s going to happen we better expect that there’s going to be the absolute best safeguards in place to protect not only those patients but also protect the staff there and protect that local community,” said Kunzweiler.
The RFP opened Nov. 26 and closes Dec. 23. It does say it is not guaranteed to be awarded.
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