State Will Build Secure Juvenile Treatment Center in Vergennes

A rendering of the proposed facility Credit: Courtesy

State officials have selected Vergennes for the site of a new secure juvenile treatment facility, according to people familiar with the selection process. 

A proposal for the 14-bed facility on state land in the Addison County city beat out a competing plan for a South Burlington business park. The state has yet to publicly announce the decision but has informed Vergennes officials, lawmakers and others involved in the process.

“I’m really, really pleased,” Rep. Diane Lanpher (D-Vergennes) said on Monday.

The state is the largest landowner in Vergennes by far, Lanpher noted, and she has long advocated for its properties to be used for the benefit of the community. Using existing state land to help expand badly needed treatment options makes perfect sense, she said.

“Our rural nature and our beautiful landscape is a much better placement for anybody that’s in any kind of treatment or therapeutic placement,” Lanpher said.

Chris Winters, commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, told lawmakers in January that his department had solicited bids for a “state-of-the-art, short-term, secure crisis stabilization and treatment facility” to house about 15 youths in either Vergennes or South Burlington.

The new facility is meant to replace the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center, a locked 30-bed facility in Essex for children ages 10 to 17 that was shuttered in 2020 following dwindling use, lawsuits and allegations that staff abused troubled youths.

While the state has not officially announced the deal, Pietro Lynn, an attorney representing one of the losing bidders, told Seven Days that the decision was made several weeks ago. “The game’s over,” Lynn said on Monday. Lynn represents Billy Mauer, the owner of an undeveloped 20-acre parcel in the Meadowlands Business Park in South Burlington. Mauer teamed up with engineering firm Neagley & Chase on one of the three bids to build the facility.

State officials called Mark Neagley, the firm’s president, a few weeks ago to let him know they’d chosen one of the other two bids, according to Lynn. Both of those proposals were to build a facility on a piece of state land in Vergennes.

Lynn said his clients were surprised by the decision because the South Burlington site was close to utilities and a population center. The state had abandoned rural Newbury in part because it would be difficult to staff.

The winning bidder was South Burlington-based construction management firm ReArch, which came in with a “significantly lower” bid than Neagley & Chase, according to Lynn.

Neither ReArch CEO Johnny Illick nor Winters immediately responded to requests for comment.

Last month, the state rejected Seven Days‘ request for the bids, saying they were exempt from public disclosure until a contract was signed. But Seven Days obtained a Department for Children and Families project summary that describes a 18,400-square-foot facility with 14 beds on a piece of state-owned land off Comfort Hill Street in Vergennes.

The property is part of the former Weeks School juvenile facility, which dates back to the 1800s. The main campus is now occupied by the Northlands Job Corps Center, a federally funded residential career-training program.

A 2015 master plan for the 476-acre property proposed “rebranding” the site as the “Otter Creek Campus” because of the negative associations with the Weeks School, which was involved in the eugenics movement.

The school opened in 1874 as the Vermont Reform School and was expanded and renamed the Vermont Industrial School in 1900. School officials gave eugenics researchers access to records in order to study the genealogies of so-called “degenerate” families, according to the University of Vermont. The reform school was renamed the Weeks School in 1937. It was closed in 1979.  

Neighbors apparently have not been informed of the plans for a juvenile detention facility.  Linette Poquette, who with her husband, Bill, runs a dog kennel across the street from the proposed center, said she had heard nothing about it.

The lack of community input in the process, compared to the highly public planning process that businesses such as hers have to go through, suggests that the state wants to “bulldoze” it forward, she said.

“It’s a bit concerning,” Poquette said.

Vergennes Mayor Chris Bearor did not return a call and email for comment.

Lanpher said state officials have been in touch with local leaders about a public engagement plan.

“The agency is working with them on how to best roll out the next steps,” she said.

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