This commentary is by Joanne O’Meara, a resident of Newbury.
In the governor’s Nov. 3 press release, he stated, “The primary responsibility of any government is public safety.”
You can see this doesn’t apply to Newbury residents who will be left to fend for themselves, as he is determined to place a facility for adjudicated, violent youth in a town with no law enforcement, nor full-time emergency services.
The administration and legislators have been informed numerous times of Newbury’s lack of adequate emergency services to support such a facility. We rely on the Vermont State Police serving 26 towns.
VTDigger reported on Sept. 1, “among the 330 sworn positions in Vermont State Police” they have a “functional vacancy count” of 78.” The Orange County Sheriff’s Department — based in Chelsea, a 45-to-55-minute drive, is also struggling with staffing issues. Additionally, Newbury’s fire and emergency responders are completely voluntary, and ambulance services are contracted with a New Hampshire company.
The Senate Institutions Committee chair said Newbury is “absolutely the wrong place” for such a facility with “simply no support services.” Yet, the administration persists to push this plan forward.
Throughout informational meetings, the Act 250 and Development Review Board hearings, residents repeatedly asked Becket/Vermont Permanency Initiative to provide a comprehensive emergency response plan for this adjudicated youth facility.
It wasn’t until they were pressed by the Development Review Board chair that a verbal response plan was given. They described an “amber alert”-like system to notify the community of an escape from this high-security facility.
That’s a clever idea if you live in an urban area; however, cell service in this area is spotty at best and several elderly and vulnerable residents near this facility do not have mobile devices.
They then attempted to recover by saying Becket/VPI employees would drive from house to house to warn neighbors — a ridiculous plan for a densely wooded area.
Finally, their chief compliance officer went on to describe a most horrifying scenario for locating youth who escape from the facility. Becket/VPI “envisioned their director of security having a response team, so working with local citizens that we would hire to be part of a response team if we ever had a situation,” adding, “what we think is unique is we’ve added this response team and you know, part of the design kind of came from Fish & Game, like Fish & Game had the search and rescue teams where they trained a number of people so they did search and rescue.”
Imagine, a dangerous youth escapes from the facility into a heavily wooded area, possibly in complete darkness, into a community with no law enforcement services, being chased down by a non-law-enforcement, modern-day posse to help apprehend and return the escapee.
The list of questions is endless here. Who are these people; what are their qualifications; will they be allowed to carry firearms; whose jurisdiction and direction are they working under; who’s vetting these individuals; what is the oversight mechanism; how will they avoid trespassing onto abutting properties; who is responsible for any bodily harm and/or property damage they may cause?
How can residents distinguish between these unknown and unannounced people hired by Becket/VPI from someone who’s trespassing to commit a crime? These are risks that Newbury residents should not have to accept.
To date, the town of Newbury has yet to receive a credible emergency response plan from Becket/VPI.
Both the town of Newbury and the residents of Newbury will continue to fight this facility from being placed in this inappropriate location. If this facility does open, Gov. Scott and his administration will be placing Vermont residents at unacceptable risk of harm.
So, as the governor stated, “The primary responsibility of any government is public safety.” I guess that responsibility doesn’t apply to the “public” who are standing in the way of his agenda.