From: "Gary Britt" 

I left Illinois in 1979, so I'm not really all familiar with Illinois'
governor Thompson.  I thought Rich had referred to governor Tommy Thompson
from Wisconsin.  Maybe I was confused.

Why didn't big Jim run for president?

Illinois appeared to be a lot better state under Thompson than under the
subsequent governors of both parties from what I gleaned from the national
press.

Gary

"Bill Lucy"  wrote in message
news:MPG.1e90f8c88dee38bd989704{at}news.barkto.com...
> In article , email{at}from_Gary_Britt.org says...
> > You aren't up on your history.  Thompson wasn't a governor in the 70's
when
> > the matters to which I referred began and came to fruition.
>
> Uh, Gary, yes he was. James R. Thompson was Governor of Illinois from
> 1977 to 1991. And I was actually working with people in the 80s who were
> in the local mental health community in the early to mid 80s, so I do
> know whereof I speak. Lawsuits weren't a big issue at this time. What
> was an issue was funding for community mental health centers. Money that
> had originally been allocated because of the Community Mental Health Act
> in the 60s was reallocated to block grants during the Reagan
> administration. The Thompson administration had already committed to
> closing 4 large state mental hospitals (Dixon, Manteno, East Moline, and
> I can't recall the other one). Most of these closed in the 1981-1982
> timeframe.
>
> Again, it had *nothing* to do with any lawsuits. At the time, we were
> unhappy with the Governor's decision regarding the closures. But the
> real issue was (and continues to be) funding of locally based mental
> health centers.
>
> So I guess I can blame the Reagan administration -- again.
>
>

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