York County man booted off mental health board for 35-year-old arrest record

Danny Simmers knows what it’s like to struggle with mental health issues. For years, he struggled with alcoholism he attributed to his depression and growing up in a dysfunctional family. That’s why when he got sober, he wanted to give something back to those who were still struggling.

He volunteered to work with substance abuse counselors, and studied to become one himself. He later served for a dozen years on the board of the Catawba Community Mental Health Center, overseeing the publicly funded center that provides for some of the neediest people in the community.

“I wanted to be able to give something back, after so long when all I did was take,” Simmers said.

That giving ended this year when Simmers had his application for another term on the board turned down. His time of service appears to have floundered on an old arrest record, including the DUIs he racked up more than 30 years ago during the time he was still drinking – and possibly because of the actions of a family member with the same name.

Fits the crime

Simmers, 70, applied for a fourth term on the Catawba mental health board earlier this year, a process that needs to be cleared through the York County Council and formally approved by the governor’s office. He was the only applicant for the seat with the body that provides basic mental health services to members of three counties in York, Chester and Lancaster.

But his reappointment was rescinded in August by the York County Council’s finance and operations committee after they received a criminal background check from the State Law Enforcement Division.

On Aug. 17, the County Council’s finance and operations committee voted to rescind Simmers’ nomination for another term on the board, which the committee had considered earlier in the year, citing a SLED report received after the committee forwarded the nomination to the governor’s office to review for the state-constituted board.

Councilman Michael Johnson chairs the committee, which also includes Bruce Henderson and Robert Winkler.

It’s unclear why the arrest report should raise flags now after Simmers’ 12 previous years serving on the committee.

Simmers distinctly remembers having to disclose his arrest record when he first applied for the board, and Johnson told the Herald that in the three years he’s served on the committee, “I don’t recall the governor ever sending us back a (SLED) report.”

The Herald requested a copy of Simmers’ background report from York County after the committee, which routinely approves applications for county boards and commissions, voted to rescind a “previous nomination” of an applicant due to a negative SLED report, without mentioning specific charges or even naming the applicant being rescinded.

Questions asked by the Herald since leave open how closely the board member’s record was scrutinized and just what records were used to reach the decision to remove him, with varying descriptions of what the committee reviewed and what the public record actually shows.

None of the current committee members were serving when Simmers’ last came up for review, and Johnson said members don’t have any kind of résumé to review other than the name of the person applying for the position, and made the decision to rescind the nomination largely based on the SLED report received from the governor.

“The county should really run its own background checks on applicants, so we can be aware of anything like this,” Johnson said.

In 1980, Simmers was convicted of a fifth offense of driving under the influence and was imprisoned for seven months. Today, Simmers describes himself then as “a stone-cold alcoholic.” He struggled with the bottle for years while also seeking treatment for his depression, including for a time at Catawba mental health.

“They don’t call alcoholism a mental health issue,” Simmers said from his home on the Catawba Indian Reservation, where he runs a roofing business out of a workshop in the backyard. “But there must be something wrong with you if you’re spending money on booze when your kids need food to eat.”

He knew his drinking was hurting his wife and four children, but he didn’t stop “running around, romping and drinking” until he came to a moment of almost divine intervention.

“The Creator delivered me of alcohol,” he said. “One morning, I had a conscience for some reason. I got down on my knees and prayed on a Sunday morning.”

The next thing Simmers knew, his stash of beer and whiskey went down the kitchen sink.

“I didn’t even know what I was doing until I had already done it.”

The last arrest on Simmers’ record came in August 1982, when he was stopped for driving without a license, which was suspended for his previous DUI.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Simmers said. “I was going to church, and the preacher asked me to take an air conditioner to an old lady. I thought if I’m doing the Lord’s work, I ain’t going to get caught.”

Turning around

In the years since his arrests, Simmers has worked to give back to his community. He took a course offered through the Bureau of Indian Affairs to certify him as a substance abuse counselor, and volunteered at Keystone Substance Abuse in Rock Hill for course credit (he didn’t complete his certification before the program was discontinued).

He still volunteers with service organizations, and acts as something of an informal counselor to neighbors on the Catawba reservation he knows are dealing with substance issues. In 2002, he was asked to serve on the mental health board by longtime member Brenda Artemes.

“He was always one of the most insightful, faithful members,” said Paul Cornely, the Catawba center’s executive director. “He was always at every board meeting. He gave us a lot of good support, and he’s a real advocate.”

The first time Cornely met Simmers was when he was hired as executive director in 2007, and Simmers was among those who interviewed him for the job. The two still regularly eat lunch together. Cornely considers Simmers’ past issues an asset to a board that handles mental health issues.

“He could bring a different perspective to discussions as someone who has been in recovery for 30-something years,” he said. “He could offer advocacy that treatment works.”

That’s valuable when board members are often expected to call legislators to lobby on mental health issues. Simmers also was the only member of the Catawba nation to serve on the board, so his loss leaves the board without a member who can speak to the issues faced by clients from the reservation.

“He brought the Catawba perspective, and he had a lot of first-hand experience he brought to the table,” said Chris Barton, board chairman and Rock Hill solicitor. “I always enjoyed working with him.”

If Artemes had her way, “I would want to see him continue,” she said, especially as few people volunteer for an unpaid seat on a public-service board. Simmers was supposed to rotate off after two terms on the board, but returned when nobody else came forward to take his seat.

“It’s difficult to find people who want to do this. He was a good member, and he was always consistent in his attendance at the meetings.”

Board members even invited Simmers back for their last meeting in October to eat a meeting-time dinner, but instead he traveled to Cherokee, N.C., to visit a reservation substance abuse center there.

The other Daniel Simmers

Even the completeness of the records the county received seems to be in question. While Johnson said Simmers “may have just made some poor decisions,” Johnson said he couldn’t overlook what he called Simmers’s more recent arrests, indicating he had seen documents indicating Simmers had been arrested on other charges “within the last five years.”

But Simmers’ SLED-provided arrest record given to committee members and the Herald ends with the board member’s 1982 arrest. Simmers insists he hasn’t had anything more serious than a traffic violation since, a contention supported by records in South Carolina’s public court index.

But Simmers’ son, also named Daniel, does have more recent arrests on his record. A SLED search conducted by the Herald uncovered a list of charges against the younger Simmers, ranging from assault and battery, criminal domestic violence and DUI. His most recent arrest was a shoplifting charge in March.

Winkler, a member of the finance committee, said the younger Simmers s record doesn’t match his memory of the documents they reviewed, which he said only included the older DUI charges against the elder Simmers.

“It was nothing as serious as an assault or some of the other things on there,” Winkler said.

Even without the more recent charges, Winkler thought Simmers’ actual record was enough to keep him from returning to the board, especially as a state board such as mental health is one of the few the county runs SLED background checks on.

“We recognized the guy’s tried to turn his life around, and wants a second chance,” Winkler said. “But we ultimately were concerned about it, and I believe the governor’s office had concerns as well.”

If the son’s arrest record ended up combined with the father’s this time, Simmers said it has happened to him before, when someone trying to review his background ended up finding his son’s record instead.

Repeated calls to Johnson seeking a copy of the documents he cited went unreturned as of Thursday evening. A copy of the arrest record obtained by the Herald was emailed to each member of the finance committee, but Winkler was the only one to respond.

Attempts to speak to the younger Daniel Simmers also were unsuccessful.

The end result leaves Simmers without a formal role with an agency he believes provides a valuable service to the community and wants to help support, and confused and hurt over how a past mistake on an old arrest sheet could erase the good deeds done in the years since.

“I am thoroughly disappointed not to be accepted,” Simmers said. “I haven’t had a drink in almost 34 years ... I want to ask whoever made the decision ‘why?’ when I put my heart and soul into this.”

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 7:44 PM with the headline "York County man booted off mental health board for 35-year-old arrest record."