Wipe away the tears

It's perfectly understandable why Fayette County commission chairman Vincent Zapotosky would get teary-eyed over the alleged beating death of a child, as he reportedly did at Tuesday's commissioner meeting.

"I'm so sorry for you," Zapotosky is reported as telling Sharon Smitley of Lake Lynn, a grandmother who came to the meeting as part of her awreness crusade. Her 4-year-old grandson, Trenton St. Clair of Point Marion, died in September despite numerous complaints being made to Fayette County Children and Youth Services.

You can read more about the case here: "Grandmother takes up cause against Fayette CYS," (Tribune-Review, April 12)

http://triblive.com/news/fayette/1061052-85/trenton-haney-forsythe-caseworker-report-cys-smitley-fayette-march-july

As we have pointed out before, this was the second death of a child in Fayette County in 2011. The first occurred in January of that year -- and prompted Zapotosky to shed tears before the cameras of WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.

Here is a transcript of that 17-month-old news segment, from WTAE's website:

Fayette County Official Vows 'Accountability' In Toddler's Death

Parents Charged With Criminal Homicide In Death Of 15-Month-Old
POSTED: 3:53 pm EST January 6, 2011
UPDATED: 6:08 pm EST January 7, 2011

POINT MARION, Pa. -- Fayette County‘s highest elected official told Channel 4 Action News that he’s determined to find out what could have been done to prevent the death of a 15-month-old girl in need of special care.

"I will assure the people of Fayette County there will be accountability," said Fayette County Commissioners Chairman Vincent Zapotosky. "I will work on it and I will find out what went wrong, and we will do everything we can to hopefully prevent future incidents of this kind."

Police charged the parents of Madison Violet Dodson with criminal homicide after she was found unresponsive by her father at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday in the family's home on Morgantown Street in Point Marion.

A year-and-a-half after making that pledge, which was made eight months before the death of Trenton St. Clair, one would think that by now Zapotosky would be able to answer three very basic questions:

1. Did CYS in any way, shape or form screw up, in the cases involving Madison Violet Dodson or Trenton St. Clair?

2. Is CYS so under-staffed that it could not handle the complaints in a timely enough fashion?

3. If CYS needs more manpower, what is his plan for the COUNTY to address this?

After all, it was Zapotosky who vowed to work on it and find out what went wrong. If CYS did all that it could, but was hamstrung by current law, then by all means it is appropriate for him to pledge his support to Smitley to get those laws changed.

That's what he reportedly did according to the June 21 HeraldStandard.com story, "Zapotosky offers help to grandmother."

But here is an interesting line from that story: Zapotosky explained that CYS is sometimes limited in its ability to immediately respond to reports, but perhaps Smitley's initiative will make a difference.

IF CYS is sometimes limited in its ability to respond to reports, that seems to us a matter of not having enough manpower to do the job. It does not seem to be a matter of inadequate state or federal laws to empower the agency to do that job.

Before anyone goes writing letters to Gov. Tom Corbett, they should be able to state with specificity what law needs changed, and how current law hampered CYS in preventing the deaths of two children in these instances.

That hasn't been done. If so, it hasn't been reported.