ST. ALBANS TOWN — One after another, about a dozen people stood up at Monday’s town selectboard meeting and shared largely the same message: The state may have little local support, if any, for a plan to build a secure facility for young offenders there.
The Vermont Department for Children and Families has proposed an eight-bed facility for teens involved in the criminal justice system near the Northwest State Correctional Facility, which is located in St. Albans Town. State officials have pitched the plan as a temporary solution while they work to construct a permanent facility for juveniles.
But town residents and selectboard members told a panel of state officials Monday that numerous expansions of the prison since the 1970s have sowed distrust among nearby residents, and many are hesitant to support new construction on or around the site.
Some speakers were adamant that the facility — which would house 15- to 18-year-olds on a short-term basis — should be built in another town, arguing that the prison already hurts their quality of life. Town officials raised ongoing concerns around public safety and the increased use of local infrastructure such as roads and the nearby hospital.
“We have paid a heavy cost,” said St. Albans resident Karen Luneau. “Somebody else in the state needs to pay their dues to all of these children that are in need.”
Brendan Deso, a selectboard member, said he thinks there is “quantifiable damage that exists within our community because that facility was sited here.” The town has lost multiple court challenges to proposed expansions at the site, board members said.
“You’ve kind of opened an old scab by suggesting to place this facility here,” Deso said. “The scab exists because the state acted — I won’t say in bad faith, but without candor in a lot of instances in expanding this facility over the last 50-odd years.”
The state wants to build a permanent facility for youth in Newbury, but it is entangled in a lengthy court battle with the town. Officials have proposed building a facility in St. Albans Town, or elsewhere, within a year and then operating it for at least five years.
The children and families department has said time is of the essence, because Vermont badly needs a secure facility to stabilize the broader system for all kids in state custody.
Chris Winters, the agency’s commissioner, acknowledged to the crowd of several dozen people Monday night that “St. Albans has done more than its fair share, really, with the correctional facility over the years.” But he said that of all the locations his department is considering for the project, “this is one of the most viable that’s been identified so far.”
Several speakers sought assurances from state officials that the facility would, in fact, be temporary. “You look like nice folks,” Luneau said, but “I don’t trust the state.” Her comments garnered murmurs of approval across the meeting room.
Jennifer Fitch, commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Services, responded that the state plans to build the facility with modular trailers that are not designed to stand up to long-term use. She also noted that the Legislature has approved $1 million for officials to start planning for a more permanent facility.
Fitch estimates that the St. Albans Town facility would cost between $4 million and $5 million total to build. Lawmakers allotted about $4.6 million in this year’s budget adjustment act — a mid-year true-up of the current budget — for a temporary secure youth facility.
Monday’s meeting saw more public opposition to the proposal than when officials first presented the project in February. At that time, selectboard members suggested that the state plan a fence around the facility. On Monday, Fitch said the state had agreed.
But town and state officials may need to resolve a disagreement about who has the rights to develop the land the state wants to build on, which is located between the prison and Lower Newton Road. That land is part of a roughly 33-acre parcel that state officials conveyed to the town in 1990 when they built a 50-bed expansion at the facility.
Fitch said the state believes it has the right to terminate the conveyance if it wants to, but Deso said the town selectboard believes it has development rights “in perpetuity.” He suggested that the meaning of the agreement may need to be examined in court.
In an interview Wednesday, Fitch said the state’s preference is to work with the town to “temporarily rescind” part of the conveyance ahead of construction. The state then would grant development rights back to the town once it no longer needs the site.
Fitch noted that the proposed project would be subject to town zoning ordinances.
Northwest State Correctional Facility was built in 1969 as a youth facility for 40 people, according to St. Albans Town records. The prison has been expanded at least 10 times since, and today it has capacity for about 250 adult men, local and state records show. Many of those expansions added new spaces for programs for incarcerated people.
As of Wednesday, the facility housed about 175 inmates, according to state data.
Ted Yandow, who said he is the prison’s closest neighbor, told state officials Monday that he thinks they have had poor communication with local residents near the facility. He said he has not been able to get his concerns addressed about a siren that regularly goes off or vehicle lights that shine into his bedroom at night.
Yandow said he was “almost insulted” that the state was proposing a new building near the prison site. “I’m sick of it — I don’t want to take it anymore,” he said.
Fitch said Wednesday that she was not aware of many of the concerns raised at the meeting, including Yandow’s, and said her office is looking into them.
“It was a realization that we need to do a better job working with our communities,” she said, “and checking in to make sure that we’re being good partners and addressing concerns from the residents within those communities.”
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story misstated the parties involved in a lawsuit related to a proposed facility in Newbury.