Ruling restarts Fernald closure

Critics vow battle to keep it open

The Patrick administration said yesterday it will restart slowly relocating residents of the Fernald Development Center in Waltham after winning a key victory in the federal courts.

But some relatives of the 163 men and women still living at Fernald said they will continue to oppose its closure by every legal avenue at their disposal.

"We are not going away quietly," said Marilyn Meagher, president of the Fernald League for the Retarded, an umbrella group for relatives and guardians of residents.

Meagher, whose sister has lived at Fernald for 54 years, said the group will see whether it can reverse yesterday's legal decision by taking the case to the US Supreme Court. She also said relatives will fight any involuntary transfer effort pushed by the administration in state courts.

In a telephone interview, a spokeswoman for Governor Deval Patrick said the administration will soon resume designing individualized placement for the 90 men and 73 women, who range in age from their 30s to their 90s.

Jean McGuire, assistant secretary for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, said the closure will not be done abruptly.

"I don't think people have to be afraid that we are going to come swooping in," she said in a telephone interview. "There will be lots of options for people to look at in terms of what serves their family member best."

McGuire said the Fernald closure is being pursued because the administration's policy is to place people with significant special needs in a community-based setting. McGuire also said the state's record with community placement has been positively reviewed by the courts.

She said the state wants to close Fernald because the center's aged physical plant makes it the most expensive Department of Mental Retardation facility to operate. It costs $256,000 per Fernald resident annually compared with an average cost of $107,000 in a community setting, she said.

Diane Booher, whose twin brothers have lived at Fernald for decades, said cost should not be forcing her siblings out of their only familiar surroundings. Her brothers are 54 years old and cannot speak, she said.

"They would lose everything they know," she said of her brothers. "I don't see how they'd survive it."

Leo Sarkasian, executive director of The ARC of Massachusetts, which advocates community-based settings for the developmentally disabled and was an original plaintiff in the litigation that led to reforms at Fernald, said Booher's fears are legitimate.

But, he said, decades of research shows more success for those living outside of large state centers, and he believes closing Fernald will help expand and improve community-based care.

In a 32-page ruling anxiously awaited by both sides of the debate, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit yesterday overturned US District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro's 2007 ruling that brought a halt to the shutdown plans.

The appellate court said Tauro, who has forced the state to upgrade care during 30 years of legal oversight of the Waltham facility, had no legal authority to reopen a 1993 consent decree.

John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.