TREATMENT CENTER BEING REVIVED

Two months after its controversial closure, the Carson Treatment Center
is being revived to serve as a civil protective custody and detox
center.

Through a Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse grant, the Community
Counseling Center of Carson City hopes to reopen the center with 12 beds
by July 20.

The grant, valued at approximately $230,000, stipulates that the center
will be operated in a partnership with South Lake Tahoe's Sierra
Recovery Center.

"The center will not offer psychiatric care," said Mary Jenkins,
Community Counseling Center director. "We wanted to go back to the
original intent of the center."

Staff from the Sierra Recovery Center are in the process of interviewing
and placing employees to fill a two-person, three shift,
seven-days-a-week operation.

Before being dissolved in May by its board of directors, the Carson
Treatment Center offered a variety of patient services, including
in-patient substance abuse treatment, with a full staff of trained
substance abuse counselors.

Allegations by center staff of sexual harassment by then-center director
Maryellen Waltz sparked an investigation by the board. After complaining
that the findings of the investigation were not being properly
distributed, counselor Tony Anderson was put on leave to "relieve the
tension," he said.

The day he came back to work, Waltz was put on leave, until the center
disbanded.

In a complaint filed with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission, counselor
Hugh Knox alleged that Waltz coerced him into a sexual relationship and
later harassed him in front of staff, an allegation confirmed by at
least two of his colleagues.

Waltz helped start the center in 1992 and was named its director in
1997.

Jenkins said Waltz has not applied for a position on the staff of the
revived center.

Previous to offering long-term drug addiction treatment, the center
operated as the Carson Detoxification Center.

The opening of the center is contingent on the Carson City supervisors
approving a lease at their meeting July 19. Next door to the Carson City
Sheriff's Department on East Musser street, the center hopes the lease
will amount to $1 a year.

Jenkins said operating in conjunction with Sierra Recovery Center gives
the region a full circle of patient services. While the South Lake Tahoe
counterpart provides psychiatric care, the Carson City facility is
simply a stopover for arrested and detox patients.

Jenkins hopes to add seven beds for male patients coming out of
in-patient treatment programs. Sierra Recovery Center offers beds for
women.