This story by Nora Doyle-Burr first appeared in the Valley News on Oct. 27.
NEWBURY — The Newbury Selectboard unanimously voted on Wednesday to appeal last week’s Environmental Division of the Vermont Superior Court decision that paved the way for a proposed youth treatment center in town.
The Selectboard, in a Thursday news release announcing its decision to appeal the court’s Oct. 18 ruling to the Vermont Supreme Court, pushed back on the environmental court judge’s finding that the treatment center proposed by the state should be considered a group home for boys with disabilities.
“We wholeheartedly reject the notion that any juvenile who commits a crime is, by default, mentally disabled,” the board wrote. “It’s clear that the proposed facility is a detention center first, and any mental health services they offer are secondary. We hope the Supreme Court can see through this clear perversion of statute by the state in an attempt to circumvent the laws and will of the people.”
The state plans to replace the former Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Essex, with a six-bed secure residential treatment facility for boys between the ages of 11 and 17 who are involved with the juvenile justice and/or child welfare systems and are at risk of violence. It is proposed to be located on a 280-acre property at the end of the rural Stevens Place west of Interstate 91 in Newbury and would be leased to the Vermont Department for Children and Families and operated by the Vermont Permanency Initiative, which owns the property.
Amid opposition from neighbors, the Newbury Development Review Board unanimously rejected the state’s proposal last year.
Last week, in supporting his decision that rejected an attempt by opponents of the project to dismiss DCF as a party to the case and granted the state and the initiative’s motion for summary judgment, Judge Thomas G. Walsh pointed to a state statute, 24 V.S.A. 4412. Under the statute, a group home serving eight or fewer people with disabilities is considered a permitted single-family residential use of property.
Walsh said the statute aims to protect “residential care facilities and group homes from exclusionary zoning.”
The DRB and a group calling itself Concerned4Newbury had argued that the facility would not be a group home but a “juvenile detention facility.”
Following last week’s ruling, state officials and the Vermont Permanency Initiative praised it but said there was more to do before the project could move forward.
“DCF is pleased with the decision, as there is great need for housing and treatment for youth in our systems of care,” Jennifer Myka, DCF’s general counsel, said in an emailed statement last Friday. “At this time, the State is awaiting a final decision on several remaining questions in the matter, and consequently the State is taking no immediate action. The State will continue its commitment to working with the town to resolve any concerns the community may have in a transparent and collaborative manner.”