The Scott administration plans to appeal a Newbury board’s decision to deny a permit for a youth detention facility there, according to Sean Brown, commissioner of the state Department for Children and Families.
“We still believe this is the right location for this facility and this program,” Brown told a mix of House and Senate lawmakers Friday during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Child Protection Oversight Committee. “We believe there are grounds for appeal.”
Brown did not elaborate on the “grounds for appeal” to the state’s Environmental Court.
Gov. Phil Scott’s administration has planned to replace the state-run juvenile detention facility in Essex — the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center, which the Scott administration closed in October 2020 — with a privately run one in Newbury.
When lawmakers approved plans for the Newbury facility last year, they hoped it would be up and running weeks ago. However, Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, an oversight committee member, said during Friday’s meeting that even if the state prevails in its appeal, the facility’s doors may not open until 2023.
The Newbury Development Review Board issued a unanimous decision late last week, denying a permit for a six-bed secure residential facility for youth, known as Covered Bridge Treatment Facility, proposed at a former bed-and-breakfast, the Valley News reported this week.
The seven-member board, the newspaper reported, found that there were not enough emergency services available to support and respond to the facility and that it did not match the characteristics of the area where it would be located on Stevens Place, a Class 4 road. The town doesn’t plow the road in the winter.
Numerous community members had expressed opposition to the plans, according to the newspaper. The project called for $3.2 million in upgrades to help boost security at the site, including fencing, detention-grade windows, 24-hour video monitoring and secure doors.
Under the plan, Becket Family of Services, a New Hampshire-based company, would contract with the state to operate the six-bed secure residential youth treatment center.
The plan has called for the state to lease a building and the property from Becket, and the Department for Children and Families would contract with the company to operate the center.
DCF had proposed covering the estimated $3.2 million cost of renovations to the former bed-and-breakfast inn. It would then cost $3.8 million annually to operate the facility. Woodside had cost about $6 million a year to run.
Brown, the DCF commissioner, told lawmakers Friday that he is also awaiting a state Act 250 land use permit for the Newbury project, and expects a decision on that relatively soon.
The move to appeal the local permit denial — and the many months that appeal process is expected to take — prompted one lawmaker on the oversight committee to call for a faster Plan B.
Sears, the Bennington senator, told Brown he’s had conversations about locating the youth facility at the former Windsor prison, property owned by the state that has been closed for several years.
“Waiting another year just really troubles me,” Sears said, telling the commissioner it would likely take that long for the appeal to work its way through the court and then complete renovations at the Newbury site.
Brown told Sears that the state Department of Buildings and General Services had previously looked at locating the facility at the former Windsor prison, but found it would be too costly to make the changes required to meet the department’s needs.
Since Woodside closed in October 2020, the state has sent youth requiring a secure detention facility to the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Among the reasons Woodside was closed: the dwindling number of young people receiving services there, often ranging from just a handful to none at all.
In addition, the state faced a lawsuit over its use of restraints at Woodside, which prompted the decision to close the state-run facility and contract with a private organization to provide secure treatment for youth.
The federal judge in that case granted an injunction against the state, ordering it to take corrective action. Judge Geoffrey Crawford wrote in his ruling about a “horrific” video he viewed about a young person going through a crisis at Woodside.
Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden, the oversight committee chair, told Brown Friday she was concerned that the municipality has come out so strongly against the facility in Newbury.
“I know that this will be a topic of conversation of the various committees of jurisdiction as it goes forward,” Lyons added.
Sears, as the discussion was coming to a close Friday, asked legislative counsel to review what role lawmakers play in the matter.
“Do we actually have a role? Because this is really truly an administrative decision, locating a facility,” Sears said. “I’d like to know what position the Legislature has in this.”
