California children's home group could lose it's license

California State officials this week verbally notified the Rubicon Children's Center that they would "seek revocation of their license.''

No single incident prompted state officials to seek to close Rubicon, which operates five homes in Fremont residential neighborhoods that serve up to 30 children. Rather, there were ``numerous concerns over an extended period of time.'' Some of those concerns include poorly trained staff members and the misreporting, or sometimes failure to report, runaway children, sexual misconduct between adolescents and thefts.

In an effort to avert an impending state order to close, the 30-year-old Fremont non-profit agency has laid off its executive director and 19 other employees and closed two of its five group homes.

Police Lt. Chuck Uhler, the lead Rubicon investigator has seen police visits to Rubicon group homes nearly quadruple since 2000. In the past three years, the state has revoked 12 to 14 group-home licenses out of about 1,700 group homes statewide.

Strangely enough, Rubicon's clinical psychologist, Edward Buchanan, will serve as acting director. He is the person most likely to have been responsible for the rehabilition to the troubled kids in the first place.