Randolph T. Holhut and Olga Peters
Cash-strapped Retreat pursues shutdown after rebuke by state agency
Legislators, state officials, and the historic psychiatric hospital itself characterize closure as a last resort that would jeopardize 830 jobs and thousands of patients
Following futile proposals for further state funding and a public rebuke by a state official holding the pursestrings, the Brattleboro Retreat's board of trustees has voted to begin the process of closing or selling the psychiatric hospital that has been part of the region's landscape since 1834.
Louis Josephson, the Retreat's president and CEO, called the scenario “the last and worst option.”...