News

Mills River town board OKs rehab facility

By Bill Moss, Published: December 16, 2015

The Mills River Town Board voted Tuesday night to permit a health care company to open drug and alcohol treatment center in a large house on Old Turnpike Road — a disappointment to a roomful of neighbors who had spent six hours over two nights urging the board to deny the zoning permit.

Board members placed restrictions on the use designed to ensure safety of the surrounding neighbors. They said they were barred by law from accepting most of the public comments as testimony. None of the comments, they said, amounted to evidence.
Among the conditions, the council required Pyramid to:

• Provide a report of any problems. “You can certainly require them to report information related to their compliance with the ordinance,” Town Attorney Sharon Alexander said.
• Form a seven-member advisory group that would include a Town Council member, the town manager, representatives of Pyramid, the fire department and the sheriff’s office, and two community members — one selected by the council and one selected by Pyramid. Pyramid’s attorney, Bill Alexander, said the facility would agree that the meetings would be open.
• Fully cooperative with law enforcement, “work diligently to ensure safety” and work to uphold community standards.
• Bar sex offenders from the property, either as clients or guests.
  
  
• Comply with federal and state law.

"I think the applicant has presented everything they need to do to get approval except for guaranteeing the safety of the community," Councilman Billy Johnston said. His motion to deny the permit died when no one seconded it.

"I think that safety’s always going to be an issue," Councilman Shanon Gonce said. "Me personally I don’t see that we’ve got any good evidence from the community. I’ve heard some good comments but as far as physical evidence that I can take and use to deny this 100 percent. … Honestly I don’t know that I have any good evidence that I could deny this."

Mayor Larry Freeman said that as an elected official, he wanted to make the decision based on one question: “Is it appropriate for Turnpike Road and Mills River?” But the rules for a special use permit assume a use is allowed unless opponents prove that it will harm the public health and safety of the community. “The lawyer tells me the only place we could change that is to go to General Assembly,” Freeman said.

“I don’t think they’ve fulfilled the special use permit … regarding safety,” Councilman Wayne Carland said. Ruby Hernandez, who is 84 years old and lives across the road, is “already experiencing a major health issue and I would hope that brought some evidence that we could have used," he said. "We need to put some restrictions on them and make them fulfill their obligation, not to change the use in a year. Nothing can stay ambiguous.”

Roger Snyder also said the law limited the council’s ability to deny the request.

“Personally, someone told me, sometime back, you got to go with your gut. If I go with my gut I’ll be doing something that’s illegal,” he said.

The board's decision at 9:20 p.m. came after Pyramid managers tried to assure Town Council members that the facility would be safe and would pose no threat to neighbors.
In the continuation of a public hearing on a zoning permit that lasted until 11 p.m. Thursday night, the executives  emphasized that its clients enter drug and alcohol treatment voluntarily, are carefully screened and are monitored for any appropriate behavior.
The assembly room at the Mills River Town Hall was again filled with neighbors opposed to the rehab center in a 10,000-square-foot home. Pyramid is a Pittsburgh, Pa., company that operates rehab centers in several states, including North Carolina. The residents gradually peeled off as the board spent
Answering questions from the Mills River Town Board members were Chad Husted, the North Carolina operations manager; Robert S. Donaldson, Pyramid’s vice president for operations and a former deputy attorney general in Pennsylvania; and Jeffrey Scott Davis, the company’s director of engineering and environmental services. They often answered questions about the proposed facility here by describing a similar program, called Silvermist, in Pittsburgh.
“In the 15 months that we’ve been operating Silvermist, we had one 911 call for a medical emergency,” Davis said. “We’ve had no situation with police, fire department, anything like that.”

Here are questions and answers:
Councilman Shanon Gonce: What kind of mental health clients does Pyramid take?
“We are not taking primarily mental health clients per se,” Husted said. “In layman’s terms that would be manic depressive or bipolar or would be schizophrenic. That is not a client we would be serving.” Instead, it treats mental conditions that are caused by alcoholism or drug addiction, he said.

Gonce: "Do you accept anyone with a criminal record?”
Husted: “Can you clarify?”
Gonce: A felony.
Husted: “No, we will not accept anyone with any significant criminal background. We are a safe facility.” Even someone never charged or convicted but known to have committed violent acts “would be deemed inappropriate for the program,” he said.

Gonce: “What is your idea of being a good neighbor and contributing positively to the community?”

The Pyramid executives said the company would hire 20 employees, most from the community, including bachelor’s degree level counselors, a chef and other kitchen help and maintenance workers. It would spend $300,000 a year locally on supplies. It would be open to creating a local advisory board, which it has established in other communities.

Gonce: Of the 180 clients Pyramid would serve, how many would remain in the community after the 28-day treatment?

Probably none, the executives said. “At Silvermist there has not been a client to my knowledge that has stayed in the local area,” Davis said.

Gonce: “How many would you expect just to walk out the door and ask to use a phone (at a neighbor’s house) or get someone to take them to the store?”

“I do not see that happening,” Husted said. “When someone is admitted to the community we’re talking about house rules.” Although fire protection rules bar the facility from locking the patients in, an alarm would sound if they walked out the door. Counselors would be “two steps behind them,” Davis said. Donaldson added: “They’re all trained in security and being able to restrain them.”
Councilman Roger Snyder asked whether Pyramid had ever had any trouble with male and female fraternizing.
“We call it he-ing and she-ing,” Husted said, adding that, no, it had not had a problem with inappropriate sexual relations.
The Town Council took a break at 7 p.m., then called a closed session to consult with Town Attorney Sharon Alexander. They came out 30 minutes later and resumed the public hearing.