By Walt Caldwell

Mountain Echo editor

Perseverance and guts have
started to pay off for former State of California employee,
Kim Young.

Barbara Hockman applied for a license to operate
the Riverview Residential Care Facility in Fall River
Mills in May of 2008. The application was incomplete
and Kim Young, a program analyst for Community
Care Licensing, an agency of the State Department
of Health Services, turned it down because it
was incomplete. Hockman continued to operate the
Riverview facility illegally. Young had a number of
contacts with Hockman. She tried to issue a citation
which would force Hockman to pay a $20,000 fine. Her
superiors didn’t sign it.

There was an unusual death at the facility. Young
notified her supervisor, saying she was going to contact
the Department of Justice as the law required.
She says her supervisor, Donna Teutshel, ordered her
not to report it.

Representatives from other agencies complained
about the facility to Young. She tried to set up meetings
with Teutshel for them and couldn’t. In February
2010 Teutshel took Young off the case and
assigned her to a desk job. Young quit shortly afterwards.
Hockman was then investigated and forced to
close the facility. Young opened her own consulting
business.

Mountain Echo did stories on the closure and some
elderly, family, and others who had experiences with
Hockman and the facility. In the process we talked to
Young and Oscar Ramirez, a public affairs officer for
the agency. Their stories didn’t match and the facts
already garnered, indicated that Ramirez was not
telling what really happened.

In January we recontacted Young and, in an interview,
she outlined her experience with the facility
and her agency. We supported it with the other information
we had garnered, and published it.

Armed with the Mountain Echo story, Young contacted,
among others, State Senator Doug LaMalfa’s
office and the State Department of Justice. Both
showed interest.

The Department of Justice is currently reviewing
it for possible investigation.

Mountain Echo contacted Erin Ryan of Senator
Doug LaMalfa’s office. She says she has contacted the
Department of Health Services and asked them to
investigate the incident. She is using the Mountain
Echo article and other data provided by Young as supporting
evidence in another case they are pursuing
in the Redding area. That case involves an elderly
woman in a Redding facility where evidence points to
the possibility of Community Care Licensing workers
trying to convince the elderly resident to give a
person her power of attorney, when the lady doesn’t
want to relinquish control over her finances.