WARREN, Maine — Residents without debate gave near unanimous approval Thursday night to authorizing the town to spend up to $60,000 more to pay for the lengthy legal battle over a proposed methadone clinic.
And at the meeting, the chairman of the town’s select board acknowledged that three other members of the planning board resigned in addition to last week’s resignation of the longtime chairman of the planning board — actions all related to the contentious issue of the clinic.
The Thursday night vote was at a special town meeting held at the Warren Community School. More than 30 people turned out for the meeting.
The approved 2012 municipal budget includes $20,000 for legal fees. Town Manager Grant Watmough said at the end of July that the town had already spent $28,000 in this account. The town has been paying an attorney to advise selectmen, one for the planning board and one for the Zoning Board of Appeals.
The Zoning Board is considering an appeal by neighbors of the proposed CRC Health methadone clinic on Route 1 by the intersection with Short Street. The planning board approved the project in June.
A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 17 in U.S. District Court in Portland on whether the tentative settlement reached last year between the town and CRC should be enforced. CRC has opposed that action, arguing that the settlement was contingent on town approval of the clinic but it has not been finally approved because of both the zoning board appeal and the lack of approval by the Warren Sanitary District.
Select Board Chairman Doug Pope said Thursday night that at the previous night’s select board meeting, three other members of the planning board submitted their resignations effective immediately. Their resignations bring to four the number of people who have left in the past week. Chairman Peter Krakoff submitted his resignation last week after 22 years on the planning board, including 20 as chairman. The three other resignations were from Melody Sainio, Beverly Williamson and Elisabeth Clark.
Pope said that all four are basically due to the long, drawn-out review of the CRC plan that has been met by strong opposition from neighbors.
Also at the meeting, residents voted for the 14th straight year to waive foreclosure of the former R.D. Outfitters rifle range on Route 90.
The owner, Steamship Navigation, has not paid property taxes since before 1999 and since then selectmen have asked and voters agreed not to foreclose on the property, which would then make it town-owned.
The town has been trying to deal with how to handle all the wastes dumped on the site when it was owned by the rifle range.
Residents also approved Thursday night, with seven residents opposed, to spend $60,000 to demolish the former Warren Primary School building. The demolition is expected to take place this fall.
The 9,600-square-foot building was turned over to the town in 2007 after School Administrative District 40 determined it had no further use for the structure. SAD 40 had used the building for several years for administrative offices after the primary school closed.
The building was originally built in 1963 as Warren High School but was used as a primary school when Medomak Valley High School in neighboring Waldoboro opened in 1968. The Warren property includes 5.5 acres.
For real, get these meth heads out of here and start putting in the medical marijuana dispensaries. I’m sure you’ll see the crime rates go down.
Unbelieveable, how in H— do you get off one poison, by dipping your beak into another poison?? What has happen to Maine people, why the idea, send these poision peddling fools the h— out of town and what or who are they trying to hornswoggle, there must be some Mainers left with backbone in Warren.
Just say NO.
Keep fighting, If you are undecided, come take a good long look at Bangor….Scum City!
I wouldn’t want a methadone clinic in my town, either.
Don’t you folks down ther know that methadone clinics are an integral part of the former Baldacci administration’s “creative economy” plans for Maine’s economic recovery ?
Those poor souls aren’t addicts. They’re tourists.
Methedone clinic = scum and crime magnet.
Can someone please explain this article to me.
Is the town voting to pay lawyers to fight against opposition of the voters in the town to this clinic?
If not what are the lawyers working on?
If so, it’s time for the voters to call for a special election.
The Town is paying the attorneys to advise the various boards in an attempt to protect the Town’s taxpayers when the inevitable ADA lawsuit comes from CRC and Mr. Emery (the man who brought them to Warren and hopes to make a lot of money leasing CRC the space for their clinic). The attorneys are attending meetings and advising the boards and generally keeping the Town from doing things that will hurt us in court.
Sad that you can’t keep the drugs out of your town just by saying NO! Nancy Reagan where are you?
Keep fighting do not let your town get taken over like Bangor.
What a complete waste of tax dollars, time and energy on a lost cause that was caused by ignorance and lack of information to begin with. You CANNOT zone methadone clinics any differently than you would zone any other medical practice, dental practice, etc, nor can you restrict them from opening in a given town. Towns try this repeatedly, wasting thousands in tax dollars, and often behaving far worse than any patients at the clinic behave (i.e., making bomb threats to clinic owners, keying clinic staff and patient cars in the parking lots, leaving bags of flaming animal feces on the clinic doorsteps, yelling insults and names at patients as they quietly came and went–these were ALL things done by town protesters in various locations), only to have the clinic open despite their best efforts to illegally keep it out.
People imagine that “meth-heads” (you might want to check your urban slang dictionary–“meth” refers to crystal methamphetamine, a street drug made in bathtubs which is a stimulant and is in no way related to or similar to methadone) are zombielike creatures who stumble and stagger into the clinic each day to get high as a kite on “that there meth” and then swarm out looking for toddlers to kidnap, old ladies to mug, church collection plates to rob, etc. This is complete nonsense.
75% of those in today’s clinics are there for dependence on prescribed painkillers, not heroin or street drugs. Many are employed–quite a few are professionals, such as lawyers, teachers, nurses, business owners, etc–or are suburban moms, college students and so on. They may very well live right next door to you, be members of your own family, do your hair, teach your kids, write up your will, deliver your mail, etc. They are not the “scum” you imagine them to be. But my how the judgement flies around Warren! Only too happy to have another tavern where people–nice, decent folk–can get legally plastered and drive around drunk or get into fistfights–why that’s just good American fun! And they are happy to welcome another AA group or NA group to meet in their churches and libraries–even though the success rates of these programs–which are NOT “treatment” in any sense of the word–are abysmal by their own internal surveys and are FAR below that of methadone treatment, the most successful treatment available. No matter that these meetings often percolate with people selling or buying drugs, people who are still using illicit substances, and people who drive home under the influence–there is no medical supervision, no urine testing, as there is with methadone treatment. But that’s ok, because it just SOUNDS so much nicer.
As for the person who mentioned “poison”–opioid medications are not “poison”. We all have opioid receptors in our brains because we manufacture natural opiates–endorphins. When people use–or abuse–opioid medications or street opiates like heroin for long periods of time, it often causes permanent changes in the brain’s ability to produce this chemical. When this occurs, the person–when off opioids–experiences severe depression, inability to feel pleasure or happiness, anxiety, extreme irritability, lethargy, and a host of other miserable symptoms. No amount of counseling, therapy, meetings, sponsors, steps, etc can cure what is a chemical disorder in the brain. When permanent damage occurs, these patients require long term opioid replacement therapy–not to “keep them out of withdrawals”, but to rebalance the brain chemistry so they feel normal again. It does NOT cause a high or euphoria in tolerant patients.
Fighting the placement of a clinic in a state with such an enormous opioid abuse problem is lunacy. Calling your fellow humans “scum of the earth” because they, like so many millions of others, developed a substance abuse problem, shows an appalling lack of compassion and an amazing amount of arrogance.