There's new information in the debate about whether or not to close the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents in Staunton.

Last year, a team of experts recommended keeping the psychiatric center open.

However, according to an article in the "Richmond Times-Dispatch" Thursday, former Gov. Tim Kaine's office "was involved in discussions that led to the suppression of findings" related to the team's study.

Robert Tucker was one of the people on the team that looked at CCCA and Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute.

"The committee in no way was endorsing closing of the center because there were children who could not be served no matter what," says Tucker.

In a draft report from November, the team made several suggestions. Closing the center wasn't one of them.

However, in the final report published in December, that was the first option listed.

"If [the center is] not there, I'm not sure what we do," says Tucker.

Republican State Sen. Emmett Hanger has opposed efforts to close CCCA.

"I'm not sure that I would consider it anything sinister at all. It was just that they had a different opinion and direction as far as where they wanted to go," says Hanger.

Hanger pushed for the team to study the CCCA.

"All that I saw was that there seemed to be an unwillingness to come to what I thought was the inevitable conclusion, that we shouldn't close the facility," says Hanger about the changes in the second report.

Tucker says there aren't other services in place to care for some of the kids CCCA serves.

"I can't understand how we would totally eliminate any safety net. There must be other reasons involved that I wasn't aware of," says Tucker.

WHSV contacted Kaine's office at the Democratic National Committee but did not receive a response.

Hanger says he's "reasonably confident" the center will stay open. Still, he also wants the state to look at ways the center can bring down costs.

The General Assembly is in the middle of final budget negotiations. Both the House and Senate versions of the budget call for the CCCA to stay open.

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