Longview, TX — A coalition of regional elected officials is organizing to seek solutions to problems caused by dwindling state resources for mental health care — with the long-term goal of establishing a Northeast Texas psychiatric facility.

“That’s one of the two main goals,” said David Cleveland, director of the East Texas Council of Governments.

The first aim of a steering committee being created by the 14 county judges in the council of governments’ service area is to streamline how people with mental illnesses are helped.

The committee, which will be appointed in coming days, is likely to include many of the county judges who created it.

“It’s probably going to be me,” Gregg County Judge Bill Stoudt said of his county’s representative. “I’m so close to it.”

Stoudt and the other county judges preside over mental commitments that occur when someone’s illness makes them dangerous to themselves or others.

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