The city council on Tuesday approved spending more than $600,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to offer non-invasive brain therapy to Turlock’s first-responders.
By a 3-2 vote — councilmembers Kevin Bixel (District 1) and Cassandra Abram (District 3) opposed, while Rebecka Monez (District 2), Pam Franco (District 4) and Mayor Amy Bublak voted in favor — the council approved a $642,500 contract with Genesis Behavior Center for Personalized repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (PrTMS) to be offered to public-safety personnel, who could be dealing with maladies that accompany the stresses of the job — ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to sleep deprivation.
Dr. Kevin Murphy, a San Diego-based radiation oncologist who specializes in treating brain tumors, joined Tuesday’s meeting online, and said he started this treatment for his son, who has autism. He believes his treatment is a fit for Turlock police, dispatchers and firefighters.
“PrTMS is a process of delivering non-invasive, light brain stimulation to our patients,” said Murphy. “We’ve been doing this with the DMV for quite a long time, and we continue to work with other state agencies to get this out to the people.”
After nearly 45 minutes of presentations and public comment, Abram had heard enough.
Though sympathetic, Abram said she was concerned about setting aside more than $600,000 for a very specific benefit.
“I’d rather give it to the employees directly,” said Abram. “We can do that with ARPA. It’s called ‘hazard pay.’ Because I trust our public safety (personnel) could do with these funds what’s right for their families, whether it’s PrTMS or something else.”
Abram continued.
“We have a lot of latitude with ARPA funds,” said Abram, who listed ways the money could be better spent, including sidewalks on the Westside, assisting seniors in rehabilitating their homes, or on fire department infrastructure. “The list goes on and on with what we could do with this. This is not the right move for Turlock; I don’t think this is the right move for our COVID relief funds. And I think our council should be looking for other proposals that would impact our community more.”
Franco then rattled off a litany of grim statistics from the National Institute of Health regarding suicide rates among first-responders, and Monez told of two minors she’d encountered through her law practice who had benefited from the treatment.
Bublak, a former police officer who said she has personally utilized PrTMS therapy to her benefit, seemed to take umbrage with Abrams’ stance.
“What we’ve said so far, to this point, to our public safety is ‘go use our counseling,’” said Bublak. “Really? They deserve more than that.”
Bixel, a medical professional, sparred with Murphy over the efficacy of the program and whether it was FDA approved.
Finance director Isaac Moreno informed the council that the city currently had about $1.6 million remaining in ARPA funds, and would have just about a $1 million remaining after approving the program.
The council also adopted the temporary Industrial Ratepayer Assistance Program to help large industrial users with the payment of their increased sewer-service rates.
Nearly $2.2 million of money collected from fines paid by large industries will be used to help mitigate the cost of the increases.
“We recognized the impact of this staff went and looked a different ways that we could ease this in,” said municipal services director Chris Fisher. “This is money collected as penalties from industrial users who exceeded their capacity under the (Turlock Municipal Code). It only comes from these significant industrial users.”
