Warren Planning Board refuses to look at methadone clinic proposal

Warren Planning Board refuses to look at methadone clinic proposal
By Daniel Dunkle


Warren — Citing the town's six-month moratorium on methadone clinics, the Warren Planning Board refused Jan. 20 to review businessman Bob Emery's application for professional office space at the former school on School Street.

CRC Health Group has proposed locating a methadone treatment clinic in the former school, and Emery has a purchase-and-sale agreement to buy the building where he hopes to secure CRC as a tenant.

The town voted Dec. 13 to enact a six-month moratorium on methadone clinics. Town officials have argued the moratorium is retroactive and will include even projects that were proposed before it was approved.

Emery, through his company Vixen Land Holdings LLC, had previously gained approval from the planning board for professional office space at a Nov. 4 meeting. The planning board later rescinded that approval. Planning board members said in previous comments they were not informed during the November meeting that the project was a methadone clinic.

Emery re-filed his application for site plan review for professional offices and was on the agenda for the planning board's Jan. 20 meeting at the town office. The small town office meeting room was packed with members of the public as the meeting began.

Planning board Chairman Peter Krakoff started the meeting by asking Emery if there was any reason he could not answer the planning board's questions accurately and honestly.

Emery said he would answer the questions exactly as he had on Nov. 4, saying that he answered all of the questions asked of him at that meeting accurately and honestly.

Krakoff asked if Emery was bound by the rules regarding any previous executive session, which might prevent him from answering questions.

"At this time, absolutely not," Emery said.

Krakoff then asked whether the project Emery was proposing was a methadone clinic.

Emery said he had a letter of intent from a proposed tenant, CRC Health Group. He said CRC is not just a methadone clinic. He said that is only a portion of the treatment it provides.

Krakoff said Warren had enacted a moratorium on methadone clinics Dec. 13 and read a portion of the moratorium ordinance. He said on that basis, the board could not consider the application any further.

Emery gave board members some information packets about CRC before leaving the meeting.

The planning board was represented by the town attorney. Emery did not have an attorney with him at the planning board meeting.

A new petition was being circulated at the meeting calling for a special election in Warren.

"We the undersigned ... request that the selectmen of the town of Warren call a special town meeting to allow the town to vote on the following two items," the petition states. "(1) That the authorization given to the selectmen at the special town meeting on Nov. 20, 2008, to sell the elementary school be rescinded. The school is to be taken off the market, the town will retain ownership and a new use for the school shall be found. (2)The town selectmen shall form a committee of interested Warren citizens to decide on the future use of the school building. This committee shall propose to the selectmen the future use of the building."

In a 10-page letter to the town, a lawyer for CRC has argued the moratorium violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Town Manager Grant Watmough said he received the letter Dec. 30 from attorney James Green of West Palm Beach, Fla., who is representing CRC Health Group Inc.

Town attorney Patrick Mellor responded with a Dec. 30 letter to Green, stating: "As a preliminary matter, neither you — nor your client, CRC Health Group, Inc. — have standing to request any relief from the Town of Warren. If you have any information that would suggest that Vixen Land Holdings, LLC is somehow an agent on behalf of CRC Health Group, Inc., please provide the same and I will reassess my opinion accordingly."

"Further," Mellor continued, "many of the facts cited in your letter are inaccurate. Lastly, your legal analysis appears to be a template of some sort, largely inapplicable to the issues at hand."

In his second application to the town, Emery included e-mails from a traffic engineer stating that he sees no problems with the building's re-use.

In addition, the application included a letter from CRC Regional Vice President Joe Pritchard addressing concerns raised by the Warren Sanitary District. "CRC Health CTC clinics do not discharge medical waste into the sewer or septic systems at the locations," the letter states.

Warren Sanitary District Executive Director Edmund LaFlamme wrote a letter to the planning board chairman Nov. 18 rescinding the district's previous approval of the use of this building. In the letter, LaFlamme cites "erroneous or incomplete information," arguing the developer represented the project as professional offices similar to a real estate office. "We now understand that a methadone clinic is proposed for the building," LaFlamme wrote.

Emery and his attorney have argued that a methadone clinic fits into the definition of professional offices in the town's ordinances. Planning board members have voiced disagreement with that position in previous comments.

"Nowhere in the town land use ordinance are methadone clinics defined or excluded," Green argues in his letter. "The proposed methadone clinic is most comparable to a medical office, which is a permitted use in this zoning district."

The goal of the moratorium is to give the town time to convene a committee and revise its ordinances to deal with methadone clinics.

Selectmen voted Dec. 29 to form a committee and charged it with addressing methadone clinics and medical marijuana facilities in terms of zoning in the Land Use Ordinance and the Site Plan Review Ordinance.

The committee has seven members with one serving as an alternate, according to Watmough.

The committee members are Selectman Christine Wakely, planning board member Michael York and residents Joseph Berkenbile, Mary Elizabeth Pope, Sarah Betts Alley and Carole Courtenay. Anthony Jameson is the alternate.

original link

http://knox.villagesoup.com/news/story/warren-planning-board-refuses-to-look-at-methadone-clinic-proposal/376057

Everytime they vote on a clinic it doesn't even get a chance.I myself attend EITC,i would love to find a doctor to help with my methadone.I was on pain killers for 7yrs.Now i want to stay on methadone for pain.It has chaged my life,wish other here in Ky.would give it a chance. Good Luck

WARREN, Maine — It took minutes for the town’s voters to agree to pass a new land use ordinance designed to keep methadone clinics away from schools, churches, day care facilities, parks, playgrounds and homes.

In fact, the clinics now are allowed only on two roads in town, Route 1 and Route 90.

About 60 voters nearly unanimously approved the ordinance on Tuesday night.

The meeting adjourned not quite 20 minutes after the town clerk passed out the ballots.

The ordinance was written after a national methadone treatment provider stated it planned to come to town and rent a former school. The town enacted a moratorium against methadone clinics until it could write this ordinance.

Because of the moratorium, CRC Health Group and the man who tried to buy the former school both are suing the town. The methadone treatment provider and Bob Emery say that the town acted against the Americans With Disabilities Act by temporarily disallowing clinics to operate in the town.

The next court mediation is scheduled for later this month, according to the town attorney.

In the very back of the Masonic Hall, where the public vote was held, sat Emery’s attorney, Phillip Cohen. Cohen said the new ordinance also is discriminatory against people with disabilities.

“It doesn’t resolve the issue,” he said Tuesday night.

The town’s attorney, Patrick Mellor, disagreed. He said the ordinance is fair and doesn’t mention methadone clinics specifically. It’s a “large business, professional and medical offices or clinics” ordinance.

“It’s a very typical ordinance,” Mellor said. “They have all of Route 1 and all of Route 90. It’s the logical place for it to be. It’s very reasonable.”

The new ordinance limits any office that has more than 150 visits daily to Route 90 or Route 1. Large offices must be 500 feet from homes, schools, churches, day care providers, libraries, parks or playgrounds. They can operate only from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to noon weekends and holidays. They also must pave driveways and have a specific amount of parking.

In 2005, the city of Rockland tried to limit a methadone clinic to a certain road and it also faced an ADA lawsuit. The city eventually let the methadone clinic move to a spot on Route 1, which was against the city’s own ordinance. That methadone clinic, Turning Tide, was shut down by state and federal officials in August 2010 after the owner was charged with felony cocaine possession.

At the brief Tuesday night meeting, residents also voted to raise $30,000 for extra attorney fees this year.

According to Town Manager Grant Watmough, the town already has overdrawn the $16,000 attorney fee budget line by more than $2,000 — and the fiscal year is only half over. All the voters save one decided it was a good idea to raise the extra cash.



Comes from the Bangor Daily News and the original link is

http://bangordailynews.com/2011/08/02/news/midcoast/warren-restricts-methadone-clinics/?ref=latest

They have a section for adding comments, I think we should all go over and post a comment about how we feel about this.

Frogger,

It is a sad situation when they act like the methadone clinic is going to bring in riff raff and corrupt their friends and families. Most of them if they would get their head out of the sand would see that their own friends and families are the ones who can benfit the MOST from a methadone clinic! With prescription opiate abuse on the rise, these are the people most likely to benefit from methadone clinics!