Picketers descended Monday on the offices of Placer County Child Protective Services in Auburn. Approximately 55 people stayed for hours in locations just outside the office on Enterprise Street and down the block at the busy intersection of Enterprise and Nevada streets. Many held placards decrying various alleged practices of Child Protective Services, an agency responsible for protecting children from abuse in unsafe households.

          Most of the picketers were from out of town. Several said Auburn was just one of many sites in Northern California where demonstrations at CPS offices recently were held or are planned. 

          "We're grandparents," said Pat Miller of Yuba City, representing Save Our Children, a Yuba City-based group. "Our son had four children. There were drugs in the household. The youngest was adopted out, but we had placement of the oldest three. We had them two years. Then, CPS Yuba City manipulated the system to give them back to a parent on drugs."

          Miller said her group put 100 people on the streets last week in front of the Sutter County CPS offices in Yuba City. Frequently, it is parents who complain about losing custody of a youngster to Child Protective Services. CPS is authorized to remove a child from a household if - on the basis of reports that undergo a complex evaluation by the agency - CPS determines a child has been injured by a member of the household or is at a high risk of being injured in the household. Bud Bautista, director of Placer County Children's System of Care, which runs Placer Child Protective Services, said that although many of the Auburn picketers might be from outside the county, the Auburn demonstration stemmed from a controversial Placer County case.

          "A Placer family notified us they were going to picket us based on a case," Bautista said. "They indicated they could produce a number of people."

          Bautista said the local family had been working with a Stockton-based group called the Central Valley Advocacy Center. 

          Some discontent with CPS in California over various issues is a fact of long standing. However, picketer Al White of Stockton, co-founder of the Central Valley Advocacy Center, said he thinks that in the last three years a change in federal aid formulas gave CPS a monetary incentive to place a child with a foster family, rather than with members of the child's extended family.

          "In 1996, President Clinton signed the Safe Adoption Law," White said. "(It provides) about $4,000 to $6,000 to CPS per adoption. They have to exceed a quota over the previous year or they're not entitled to that federal money."

          Bautista confirmed that in 1996 an increase in adoptions money was linked to a target number of adoptions per county. But Bautista added, no incentive exists to increase adoptions year by year. Pending legislation, however, would provide incentives for promoting adoptions over foster care, he said. Besides losing custody on the basis of reports the parents might dispute, some parents have complained their children were placed in unsafe environments by CPS.

          Charlie Wittman of Los Gatos said his dissatisfaction with CPS originated when he and his wife lost custody of a child in a chain of events that began when the couple called Santa Clara County CPS to get help.

          "We're going to organize in Santa Clara next," Wittman said. Wittman added that the Internet is a factor in bringing together protesters from various regions in a string of anti-CPS demonstrations throughout the northern part of California. "We came (to Auburn) because we saw the Yuba posting on  the Internet," Wittman said.

          Citing the confidentiality of much of CPS' activities, Bautista said he could not comment further on the demonstration. Several demonstrators mentioned the confidentiality surrounding CPS proceedings as a prerogative that they think is prone to abuse. 

          For most on the picket line, demonstrating seemed a fairly unfamiliar action.

          "I never dreamed I'd be standing on a sidewalk carrying a sign," Miller said. 

All content © 1999 The Sacramento Bee and may not be republished without permission.