Mediation Funds Start With Wedding

It was hard to believe it was happening.

Just a year ago, the two of them stood at the Ventura County courthouse, promising to take the other as a lawfully wedded spouse.

They had thought about their future. Had a baby boy.

And now this: They were sitting in an empty hallway of the East Valley courthouse in Simi Valley--she staring silently at her hands folded in her lap; he tapping one foot as he gazed at a computer-generated sign taped beside a nearby door.

The sign had a picture of two hands clasped together. Below it was the reason they were there. “Mediation,” it said simply.

A few minutes later, the door opened and the man’s wife was ushered inside. The man would wait outside.

“My parents got divorced and I swore I’d never put my kids through that. But she’s forcing me into this,” said the man, who, like his wife, didn’t want his name used.

“We separated in September, and then my father sent me a plane ticket to come see him in Illinois. He’s never seen the baby. So three days before the trip, I get served with a restraining order from my wife. She was afraid I’d never bring the baby back.”

He waved in the air a court document filed by his wife, asking that he be denied unsupervised visitation with his son.

“I’d never do that in this economy,” he said. “I have a good job here.”

Half an hour later, the man’s wife emerged. Now it was his turn. As he presented his side to the mediator, the wife recounted her version of events.

“He’s verbally abused me since we met,” she said in the hallway. “He has threatened to leave with the baby.”

They would then face the mediator together and be told their options: They could work out their child custody and visitation disagreements then and there. Or they could watch their attorney fees escalate and let a judge decide it for them later.

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Mediation, of course, isn’t new. Ever since state law was enacted 11 years ago, it’s been required in all divorce cases involving minor children and in custody disputes.

It also has been free. The reason the county picks up the tab, said Marsha Wylie, senior mediator for the Ventura County Superior Court’s family relations department, is that mediation saves the county money in the long run.

“It reduces the need for court time, judge time, hearing time and also reduces the damage to families who otherwise might need social services,” said Wylie, who estimated that 85% of all Ventura County couples resolve their custody disagreements by the end of the mediation session.

Last year, she said, seven county mediators provided 1,500 such sessions. Wylie expects the number to rise to about 1,700 by year’s end.

OK, so the program makes sense. No argument there. But a recent decision by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to help defray the program’s $420,000 annual cost is another matter altogether. To understand it, you have to suspend for a few minutes your normal ideas about how funding is generated.

Two weeks ago, the supervisors approved charging a $5 fee for mediation. Not so steep in the grand scheme of things.

But here’s the rub: The couples using the service won’t be the ones paying it. Who will? Why, the people who thought marriage was such a great idea in the first place.

Newlyweds.

As of Dec. 1, the fee will be tacked onto the $31 cost of obtaining a marriage license, raising it to $36.

“In 1991, there were 4,096 marriage licenses issued in the county, so multiply that by five and that’s what the revenue would be,” County Clerk and Recorder Richard D. Dean said.

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Dean said he’s heard people ask what getting a marriage license has to do with mediation services. Mediator Wiley answers that it’s because the county hesitates to impose a fee on couples who are forced to use the service under law. But Dean thinks it’s something of a trend:

“There’s a lot of disconnected revenue-raising going on now--the cost of getting a birth certificate being jacked up to cover child-abuse services, and things like that,” he said. “This is a continuation of that.”

Personally, I think the Board of Supervisors is onto something here. Disconnected revenue-raising is obviously an idea whose time has come. After all, if you want money for programs and services in these tight economic times but can’t quite figure out an acceptable way to just come right out and say it, why not just think creatively?

And why stop at marriage licenses?

The board could tack on a $5 tax to the cost of all motorcycle helmets and give it to the county hospital. It’s possible that one of those cyclists just might end up in the emergency room some day.

The cost of a birth certificate could be increased to apply to mental health services. Isn’t it a fair bet that at least a few of those parents would be driven crazy by their kids?

They could even hike the cost of vehicles sold in the county to give to the public defender’s office. What if at least one drunk driver needed free legal services one day?

The possibilities are endless. And the great thing is, the person using the service gets off paying nothing.

Even people in mediation would probably agree upon that.