Virginia Tech has some more explaining to do. More than two years after Seung Hui Cho went on his murderous rampage across the school's sprawling campus, the Post is reporting that his mental-health records from Tech's counseling center have been found.

The new records contradict Virginia Tech's old narrative of events. The records appear to suggest that Cho received far more counseling at the university than had been previously reported. How the records disappeared is now being investigated as a criminal matter.

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As WJLA reported last night, and DCist noted this morning, the D.C. Department of Mental Health wants to shutter its mental health centers and replace them with privately-run facilities.

City Desk reached DMH this afternoon for comment.

“We’re doing it," says Director Stephen T. Baron. "But we’re not doing it until ’09." This should not shock anyone who either a) works at DMH or b) follows DMH closely. The department had been pushed to assess its mental health centers for a while. This past summer, it hired KPMG to study whether the centers should go private. The departmental back story is referenced in a report released earlier this month.

The conclusion of the study, Baron says is simple: If DMH privatizes its centers, it will save a lot of money and have a chance to increase the number of residents it helps. The department would save between $11 and $14 million.

The savings would come from an obvious source. "I think frankly it comes down to labor costs and the benefits," says Phyllis Jones, DMH's spokesperson. "The private providers tend to have cheaper labor costs.”

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Dear D.C. Gov:

I know you are now suddenly worried about at-risk children. And now must come up with a plan. [We will have more on this plan in a later post].

My most pressing worry concerns an adult, a woman who logs some serious time at the corner of 16th and Irving Streets NW. I've seen her around for the past five, six years. She is troubled. She may have schizophrenia. She gets her food out of trash cans.

Last night, I saw her around 8 p.m. and again at somewhere close to 3 a.m. Same spot. Same sense of ceaseless desperation. She walks with brace-like things so she must have some access to healthcare, has presented herself to a nurse, a tech, a weary emergency room desk clerk. But she clearly needs something more.

She is not what District residents might refer to as a "local character." She needs help. At my 8 p.m. sighting, she bounded across 16th Street without any hint that she understood this to be a busy intersection. People avoided her. Tried not to make eye contact. Cars kinda paused.

She had the same ceaseless energy at 3 a.m. The same yelling and bellowing and heavy breathing and bounding across the now not-busy street.

But I worried. Do something.

Yours,

J.C.