ROCKINGHAM — “I don't know if it will be the end-all, be-all,” Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark told The Commons last week, following his announcement of an anonymous donation of 11.5 acres of property for his controversial detention center project.
The new site for the project, now called the Southern Vermont Justice Center, at the corner of Missing Link Road and Route 5, at exit 6 of Interstate 91, “meets my needs, and addresses the vast majority of comments and concerns of the public, including traffic, distance to schools, and not [being] close to residential neighborhoods, or near the river,” Clark said.
The proposed location for the detention center, formerly the Liberty Mill Justice Center, at 715-725 Rockingham Rd. (Route 5) gives direct access to the Interstate 91 corridor. The lot is the site of the former Highland Motel.
And, he noted, “I don't think there is a location in Windham County that is further from schools.”
Clark expects to take ownership of the property in April.
Rockingham and Bellows Falls residents voiced their shock and dismay vociferously on social media, following their discovery of what they felt was a “bait and switch” tactic by Clark to locate his justice center in Rockingham.
A site plan review of the application will go before the Planning Commission on Wednesday, March 23 at 7 p.m., in the Lower Theater of the Town Hall.
A 'poorly worded' question?
By a 1,053–287 margin, voters gave a resounding - but nonbinding - “no” to the center, originally proposed for a location at the southernmost tip of the Village overlooking the confluence of the Saxtons and Connecticut River.
Of 3,429 registered Rockingham voters, 1,550 voted on March 1, according to Town Clerk Kathleen Neathawk.
But Clark described the article, which asked voters if they would “allow placement of a detention center within the legal boundaries of Bellows Falls,” as “poorly worded.”
“I didn't take that as meaning the entire town didn't want a justice center,” he said.
Clark also noted that the true nature of his programming and project was not included in the article's verbiage, an omission he felt that was “not fair” to voters.
He insisted that he was true to his word, however, in dropping the former Chemco building location and in choosing instead, to accept the land, which was donated on the condition that it be used “to build a Justice Center,” he said.
Clark hopes to begin construction on the project in two years, but much has to happen between now and then. And overcoming public opposition will be the first step.
The new site is owned by the Lawrence Kasser Children's Trusts, administered by Salmon and Nostrand of Bellows Falls. It is one of the last undeveloped Connecticut River view properties in Rockingham, overlooking Herrick's Cove, and Audubon Vermont has designed it as one of 21 “important bird areas” in the state.
Clark said the easy access to Rutland and Burlington from there complied with one of his criteria for where the project must be located.
He told The Commons that he had received an anonymous donation equal to $300,000 attached to the location, that came with only one stipulation: “Build the justice center.” Clark said he could not turn down the gift.
“We're not yet the owners,” he said. “The purchase-and-sale agreement has us taking ownership on or around April 13.”
Clark noted that if the total projected costs after the site plans, architectural engineering, and programming costs have all been drawn up exceed the projected profits for the project, he would “sell the land back to the donor,” the Klasser Children's Trust, at no significant loss to the Sheriff's Department.
A public opinion backlash
As soon as the Windham County Sheriff's press release hit the Internet announcing a deal and filing of a zoning permit application for the property, Facebook pages and groups lit up.
With the Village annual meeting coming up on May 17, Deborah Wright, who spearheaded the Town Meeting article petition, immediately started another petition that would put a similar article on the Village ballot, this one to bar detention centers “anywhere” in Rockingham.
Some residents immediately wondered in comments if Clark had intentionally used a “bait and switch” tactic. Others thought that nesting bald eagles near Herrick's Cove could be a way to stop the project. And some, like local artist Charlie Hunter, a strong opponent of the project, wondered about the legality of the mechanics of the $300,000 donation.
No new mechanics for funding
Clark said that he plans to fund the project as he has all along, with the exception of a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that was tied to the original site of the Chemco building.
Firstly, Clark said the USDA loan was primarily aimed at accessing matching grants for engineering and architectural plans. With the current arrangement, he said, he does not have to obligate himself to a loan.
The timing came on the cusp of Clark's receipt of the results of the Chemco building assessment. “The building was in a lot worse shape and a lot older than I thought,” he said. Nevertheless, the $13,000 spent on the study “was money well spent,” in his opinion.
The offer of the land, which eliminates the need for a loan, was just too good to pass up, he said.
In any case, Pollaidh Major, public affairs specialist and administrative assistant to the state director of the USDA's Rural Development program, said last week that, hypothetically, if a project location changes after a loan is awarded, if the project is not significantly impacted by that change, and if the USDA points-scoring system does not change radically, that “hypothetically,” the loan could move with the project.
But Clark said the previous developer, DEW LLC, would not be a part of the new project location, and he did not seem interested in pursuing the USDA loan further.
Major said that the USDA rural development loan announcements are due “any day now.”
Sheriff partners with NIC
Clark said that the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), a federally-funded resource center for law enforcement agencies setting out on new projects, would assist.
He said that NIC will assist with training “right down to working with architects and builders on how to comply with federal criteria and industry standards,” for detention centers.
The NIC plans a full assessment of the justice center programs and will determine how the programming “should look” based on meetings with Clark and with “judges, law enforcement, [and] social service agencies.”
Clark said that the NIC will also seek community input, noting that a town hall-style meeting would be likely.
“Steps 1 and 2 is meeting [with those entities and] with the public,” he said, adding that those first steps would result in a report that he will use to determine the specifics on how he moves forward, including if the current site is the most suitable
In step 3, the NIC will host Clark and three others involved in the project in Colorado for training that will include how to manage a budget as large as a justice center would require.
'Finding something wrong'
In spite of the vocal local opposition, Clark insists that support is strong from state and federal agencies for the programming that he says would be the backbone of an innovative approach to keeping criminals in Vermont from reoffending.
Clark is adamant that he had told the public all along that he was considering other properties, and not just the Chemco location, in part, he said, because he had been listening to objections from the public.
He said he does not follow social media, characterizing such discussions as not constructive to the conversation. Clark said that opponents of the project on Facebook and other such sites “feed off each other's negative comments.”
“They wanted another location,” he said - a demand that he feels is solved by the new location near Exit 6. But “no matter what I did,” he said, residents “find some way of finding something wrong.”