Cherryfield residents oppose methadone clinic Discovery House holds informational meeting

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CHERRYFIELD – More than 100 residents voiced their opposition Wednesday to the potential siting of a methadone clinic in this Washington County town at the first public informational meeting called by the company seeking to open the facility. A few residents supported the plan.

After a 30-minute presentation by Discovery House, a Rhode Island for-profit firm that already operates three other clinics in Maine, most residents crowding the meeting room at the town office made their stance clear.

“We don’t want you here,” they said repeatedly, often to applause during the evening meeting which had no facilitator as attendees clamored to be heard.

Also repeated was this question: Do residents have a choice whether Discovery House locates in Cherryfield, or not?

It was asked as many as four times during the 90 minutes for residents’ comments, but never answered directly.

Finally, Daniel Walker, the Augusta attorney and lobbyist who represents Discovery House’s effort to open in Cherryfield, articulated a response.

“Discovery House has a policy of not going anyplace where we are not wanted,” he said. “That’s a policy. But legally speaking, this town has no zoning … .”

Those who learned about the company’s plans to come to the town of 1,157 residents just in the last week listened to explanations of how Discovery House works, and statistics that supported how Washington County could benefit from a second methadone clinic. A Discovery House in Calais, serving 218 clients, has been open for 16 months.

But the statistics were dated, from between 1997 and 2003. Much of the information related was anecdotal.

While the crowd concurred that addiction to opiates needs to be addressed locally, Cherryfield is likely not the right place to do it, many said.

“We are not a city, we are a town,” a resident said. “We don’t have a police department. We don’t even have a stoplight that goes green-red-yellow.”

Discovery House has a contract to buy the former Tenaco building on Route 182, the Blackwoods Road, if it can obtain licensing from the state Office of Substance Abuse.

The proposed site is two-tenths of a mile from Cherryfield Elementary School. Many in the room had problems with that.

“I have a difficult time putting faith and trust in people opening a methadone clinic a stone’s throw from an elementary school,” one woman said.

Steve Pagels, one of Cherryfield’s school board members, was more direct.

“To have your facility just up the street from the school, just stinks,” he said to clapping from others.

Asked to justify Discovery House’s choice of Cherryfield, Rob Kornacki from the company’s Rhode Island headquarters said, “There was an available building, and we found initial support here.”

Asked to name that initial support, Kornacki said he heard it from three community leaders – state Rep. Eddie DuGay, D-Cherryfield, Washington County Sheriff Joe Tibbetts and Cherryfield resident Peter Duston, a private educator who often works with troubled teens.

DuGay and Duston were at the meeting, and both spoke in favor of the facility. Tibbetts, who finishes his eight years as sheriff in December, was absent.

Three counselors from the Calais clinic, and Dan Mahoney, director of the Discovery House in South Portland, also spoke about Discovery House’s methods and successes within Maine.

Things have worked out extremely well in Calais, the presenters noted.

The company had been interviewed by a group working to bring a substance abuse treatment clinic to Washington County and was chosen from among three applicants.

That’s not the case in Cherryfield, where residents worry that they may not have a choice of whether a methadone clinic opens in their midst.

Lucy Witt, chairman of the town’s planning board, said Cherryfield is “too small a place” for a clinic not to cause problems.

“There is no point in having a 24-hour alarm on the building, if there isn’t law enforcement here to respond,” she said.

“I’m not saying there is not a drug problem here, because our town office has been broken into twice, and I believe those were drug-related.

“But what I don’t understand is, why Cherryfield? There is no bus transportation here. This is just not a good place to bring in a lot of people who are not part of our community, without the infrastructure.”

Witt said she would work with others to identify other sites within Washington County beyond Cherryfield. Someone suggested that Discovery House look at purchasing the Wilderness Lodge, which is vacant and up for sale on Route 9 near Wesley.

Kornacki said he was pleased to hear concerns and “get the pulse of the community.”

“We have a pretty good sense now,” he said toward the meeting’s end. To residents’ laughter he added, “Can you make it a little clearer please?”