Significant Events - 2005

• Ongoing: Members of Friends of Fircrest attend Shoreline City Council meetings and participate in Shoreline Chamber of Commerce activities, since these offer opportunities to provide information about the role and importance of Fircrest School in the community.
  
  
• November 21: Members of Friends of Fircrest attend the King County Developmental Disabilities Legislative Forum, to meet with their legislators.
  
  
• October 26: Friends makes an invited presentation about Fircrest School to the Rotary of Shoreline Breakfast Club
  
  
• September 20: The Governor's Office announces appointments to the Governor's Developmental Disabilities Residential Study Advisory Council. Friends is concerned that the appointments do not include a parent or guardian of an RHC resident. For details, please see our press release. Also see Brooke Fisher's story in the Shoreline Enterprise. For information on the activities of the Council, see the Council's website.
  
  
• August 20: Friends participates in the annual Shoreline Parade and festival, with two decorated automobiles plus a number of enthusiastic marchers.
  
  
• July 28: Friends participates in Funfest at Fircrest School, an event enjoyed by Fircrest residents, and their families, guardians, and friends.
  
  
• July 19: DSHS announces plans to close additional cottages and to reduce Fircrest staff by 28 positions. This contradicts DSHS’s statement to the Washington State Court of Appeals on July 13 that it had no further plans to downsize the school. It also pre-empts the work of the Governor’s Advisory Council, whose recommendations won’t be submitted until Jan. 1, 2006. For additional details, please see our press release and Brooke Fisher’s story in the Shoreline Enterprise. See also the opinion piece in the Shoreline Enterprise on August 12 Wait for work done by advisory panel before more Fircrest moves.
  
  
• June 24: A new permanent resident is admitted to Fircrest. See
  Fircrest opens doors by Brooke Fisher, The Enterprise (Shoreline)
  
  
• June 22: The Seattle Times prints an unsigned editorial calling for Fircrest closure:
  Close Fircrest, spread the savings. For a rebuttal to this editorial, see Examine all the facts and keep Fircrest open by Maureen Durkan, Guest Columnist, The Seattle Times, July 15, 2005. [ Please note, in Maureen’s column, the $143 cost per day for a Residential Habiliatation Center (RHC) is an average net amount based on costs at the 5 existing RHCs. This figure is reached subject to the Federal Match and a Cost Detail formula designed by DSHS & Centers for Medicaid & Medicares Services (CMS). ]
  
  
• May 10: DSHS acknowledges that Fircrest downsizing is completed, and that Fircrest School will operate through the next biennium. See What’s Happening? the DSHS Newsletter about Fircrest downsizing (final issue!), May 10, 2005 (56 kB pdf file)
  
  
• March 23: Representative Maralyn Chase announces that Governor Gregoire’s proposed budget will keep Fircrest School open! For details, see Rep. Chase’s press release and Brooke Fisher’s article in The Enterprise.
  
  
• February 22: Representative Ruth Kagi introduces House Bill 2190 that would create a commission to review the need for state and community residential facilities for developmentally disabled people. The eventual recommendations of the commission could significantly impact Fircrest School, and all Washington State RHCs.
  
  
• February 3: Fircrest School’s nursing facility is once again listed by the Consumers’ Research Council of America as one of America’s Top Nursing Homes (see image below right). For details, see our Press Release
  
  

• January 28: Representative Ruth Kagi’s committee will not hold hearings on HB 1040, so the bill is effectively dead for now. For details, see Brooke Fisher’s story in The Enterprise, Shoreline, WA
  
  
• January 19: Friends of Fircrest members deliver information packets to all state legislators. The packets include a video about Fircrest made by students at the Art Institute of Seattle, and a poster showing Fircrest resident Terry Hamley. Download copy of poster (8½" x 11" - 337 kB pdf)
  
  
• January 11: Representative Helen Sommers introduces House Bill 1040 that, if it becomes law, would close Fircrest School and significantly impact other Washington State RHCs