Cross Windsor off the list of towns that would host a new juvenile detention center in Vermont.
A Senate panel has nixed a proposal for turning the now-closed Windsor prison into a secure facility for youth, with one member saying that town has already done its part for the state by hosting a prison for more than two centuries.
The bill, S.245, calls for fitting up the former Southeast State Correctional Facility for “emergency” use as a juvenile detention facility to replace the now-shuttered Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center that had been in Essex.
The bill also would require Sean Brown, commissioner of the state Department for Children and Families, to come up with a plan for a permanent facility for up to 10 youths.
“They’ve done their part over the years, I think,” Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand Isle, said of Windsor residents Wednesday afternoon during a meeting of the Senate Committee on Institutions. “I can’t imagine us going down that road. It makes no sense.”
Committee Chair Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, agreed that the legislation would not be moving forward.
“We got consensus,” Benning said to his fellow panel members. “Windsor is not the place.”
Windsor Town Manager Tom Marsh, in an interview prior to the late Wednesday afternoon committee meeting, said the town opposes the siting of a secured facility for youth at the former prison site for several reasons.
“We’ve had a state prison since 1809. Now that it’s closed, Windsor feels like we’ve done our part of service,” Marsh said. “You can’t say we’re ‘not in our backyard’-type people because we’ve had it in our yard.”
The bill up for debate in the Senate Committee on Institutions on Wednesday was sponsored by Sen. Cheryl Hooker, D/P-Rutland.
Hooker, speaking after the committee meeting, said she was disappointed that the proposal would not be advancing as the state needs to find a safe place that meets the needs of the youth and those caring for them.
She said she believed that the Windsor site made sense because it was a state-owned property that is not being fully used.
“It seemed like a logical place to put some effort into, to at least have a temporary facility there,” Hooker said.
The Scott administration outlined a plan when it closed the state-run, 30-bed juvenile detention facility in Essex in October 2020 with the idea of replacing it with a privately run six-bed one in Newbury.
However, among the problems that plan has run into has been community opposition and the denial by a local board of a needed permit. The state is challenging that ruling in the Vermont Superior Court’s environmental division.
Even if the state is successful in getting the permits it needs, it could take more than a year to make the needed upgrades to the former bed-and-breakfast in Newbury for it to be used as a secure facility for youth.
The proposed legislation taken up in the Senate committee called for the $3.2 million that had been budgeted to fix up the Newbury facility to instead go toward upgrading the now-closed prison in Windsor.
The Vermont State Employees’ Association, a union representing state employees, has been demanding that state officials address the situation regarding a youth detention facility.
Department for Children and Families staffers are facing “extremely dangerous situations” at work due to the lack of a secure facility for youth in the state, the union said in letters to state officials and in testimony to lawmakers.
The Woodside facility had been staffed by state employees. The Scott administration moved to contract with a private organization to provide secure treatment for youth as the number of young people receiving services at Woodside dropped to none at times.
Also, the state was sued over its use of restraints at the Woodside facility, with federal Judge Geoffrey Crawford granting an injunction in a blistering ruling in which he described a “horrific” video he viewed about a young person going through a crisis at Woodside.
The Windsor alternative found no supporters Wednesday among the five-member Senate committee.
“The town of Windsor really doesn’t want this,” said Sen. Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, a panel member. “I know we can put it there if we want, but just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.”
As the committee meeting drew to a close Wednesday afternoon, Mazza, a panel member, said the state should be pursuing a community that is responsive to hosting a facility.
Mazza also questioned moving forward with the Newbury proposal that is currently on appeal as the state seeks a local permit.
“I don’t know what we can say about it,” Mazza said, adding that the matter is now in litigation. “It probably should have never went that far.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect first name for Tom Marsh.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Senate panel rejects bill to turn former Windsor prison into juvenile detention facility.