Amber Alert-type system for senior citizens in the works

By Jeremy Twitchell

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 | 6:58 p.m.

A bill that would create a statewide alert system for missing seniors similar to Amber Alert for children is a good concept, members of a State Assembly committee said Wednesday afternoon, but it needs some refining.

Members of the Assembly Committee on Health and Human Services during a public hearing expressed concern about limiting the alert to people 60 and older and asked Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, D-Las Vegas and the bill's sponsor, to work with interested parties to rewrite the bill.

No specific date was set for the bill to return to the committee.

The way the bill was written, committee members said, the alert could be used unnecessarily in cases such as a senior who simply goes on a trip without telling anyone. They also suggested the criteria for issuing an alert for a missing person should focus on the individual's mental capacity and potential for harm, rather than age.

Supporters of the bill said the Silver Alert System, as they are calling it, could piggy-back off the agreements and infrastructure of the Amber Alert System, which issues bulletins for abducted children, and be implemented at little or no cost to the state.

"This has been our No. 1 issue, to make a bill to go through to protect our seniors that get lost, get confused and wander off, before they can no longer be found alive," said Ruth Hart, a member of the Nevada Silver Haired Legislative Forum. "Since the Amber Alert is already in place, this is a wonderful method to use to find our seniors."

Several people spoke in favor of the bill from the committee's chambers in Carson City and the Grant Sawyer Building in Las Vegas via video. Among them were a former legislator, the founder of the Nevada Center for Missing Loved Ones, several private senior citizens and an AARP representative.

"How many times have we heard that a child was safely recovered when an Amber Alert was issued?" said Barry Gold, director of governmental relations for AARP Nevada. "How many times have we heard of it ending very, very badly when a senior wandered off?"

Another who attended the hearing but did not speak was Carol Holt, whose mother, Opal Parsons, disappeared from her Las Vegas home in 2007 and has not been found.

"I just think (Silver Alert) would be awesome," she said. "It's too late to help my mother, but it could help someone else's mother."

Robert Fisher, president of the Nevada Broadcasters Association and chairman of the Nevada Amber Alert Review Committee, said he understood the need for a program to protect at-risk seniors, but said the bill would not accomplish that goal.

As it stands, he said, the system would be too frequently activated and people wouldn't take it as seriously as they should. The Amber Alert was used twice in Nevada in 2008, he said.

"The success of Amber Alert is the fact that it's not the car alarm syndrome," Fisher said. "How do you react when you hear a car alarm go off? You don't. That is what we cannot do with the Emergency Alert System in Nevada, because the Emergency Alert System is the voice of Homeland Security in Nevada."

Frank Mahoney, founder of the Nevada Center for Missing Loved Ones, said he's in favor of the bill, but agreed that the criteria for activating the Silver Alert need to be tightened. He suggested that law enforcement agencies should take the lead in establishing criteria and that they should focus on the mental state of the missing individual.

But some kind of system needs to be put in place, he said.

"In the first two to four hours, it is critical for missing seniors because of the need for medications and the temperature in our state," he said.

Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 990-8928 or [email protected].