LOS ANGELES — When lawmakers, mayors, psychiatrists and mental health advocates gathered last month to unveil a bill that would "enact major changes to California's behavioral health law," they put into motion an annual ritual in Sacramento.
Updating the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act has long been the goal of critics who say the landmark 1967 law has become an impediment to providing mental health treatment for those most in need.
The author of the newest effort is state Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, and her bill — SB 43 — arrives at a time when untreated mental illness is both a heartache and a frustration for families and communities throughout the state.
