WILMINGTON — The leader of Mental Health Recovery Services just barely convinced his own board to seek a 1-mill replacement levy Wednesday, earning a shot at selling Warren and Clinton county voters on it in November.

        The 11-4 vote just passed by the required two-thirds majority of the 16-member board. Four members voted against the resolution because of concerns about competing with Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities' levy, which also will be on the fall ballot.

        “I'm just concerned about MRDD and our board not being able to pass either levy,” said new board member Ernie Lawson, mayor of Waynesville. “We need to be looking at some options and maybe consider waiting.”

        But Executive Director Bill Harper said because the current levy expires at the end of 2003, this is Mental Health's only shot at a replacement levy before being forced into the fallback of seeking another renewal next fall.

        Mr. Lawson and two of the other “no” votes were appointed this spring by the Warren County commissioners, who asked Mental Health officials last week to delay the levy until next year.

        Agency officials say a 1-mill replacement levy is necessary to reflect increases in property values since 1986.

        It would collect an estimated $4.6 million a year for Mental Health, compared to the $2.6 million the agency expects to collect this year.

        A replacement levy would cost the owner of a $100,000 house an additional $14 a year, or $35.

        More money is needed to deal with a fivefold increase in severely disturbed children and threefold increase in severely disturbed adults in the past decade, Mr. Harper said. The agency has a waiting list of about 225 adults and children, he said.

        “Is there an Andrea Yates (the Houston mother who drowned her five children) in this number that we're not serving?” Mr. Harper asked. “That should concern everybody.”

        Mental Health helps the mentally ill find housing and jobs, treats disturbed children, responds to mental health emergencies and runs a poison hot line.

        The levy try comes on the heels of a replacement that failed in 2000 and a two-year renewal that passed last fall.

        The fact that the Mental Health board did not speak with one voice on the levy won't hurt its chances with voters, Mr. Harper predicted.

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