Click here to subscribe today or Login.
By BONNIE ADAMS badams@leader.net
Thursday, March 06, 2003 Page: 1A
PLAINS TWP. – John and Julie Helinski disagree with each other about the
proposed methadone clinic planned for 1,500 feet from their Laird Street home.
“I’m against it. I think it’s too close to houses,” she said.
“Obviously it’s something that’s needed. I really don’t have many
reservations about it,” he said.
Their neighbors in Parsons Manor, a housing development located in Plains
Township and Wilkes-Barre, offered mixed but strong views on Wednesday. The
township’s police chief is also concerned about problems the clinic might
bring to residents and the many workers employed in the residential-commercial
area.
The manor has the closest homes to the proposed out-patient facility, which
would treat up to 70 heroin addicts daily. Businesses such as Altec and Trion
industries are closer to the proposed site, which houses a dialysis treatment
center.
Julie Helsinki, like some of her neighbors, voiced concern about how the
clinic’s proximity might affect home resale values. A 1999 state law prohibits
methadone clinics from locating within 500 feet of homes, schools and
churches.
Laird Street is just across state Route 315 from the Woodlands Inn &
Resort.
“I don’t think we at the Woodlands would be opposed to it,” Chief Executive
Officer Gary Kornfeld said Wednesday, stressing that he was offering only his
personal opinion. He said people need treatment if they are ill and it’s
unfair to differentiate among treatments.
“Where do you put that facility, in the middle of the woods? And how do
they get there?” Kornfeld asked.
Longtime Parsons Manor resident Sam Anderson said the clinic should located
in a rural setting.
“I don’t want it in my area,” said Anderson, a parent who has lived on
Brader Drive for 24 years. “I got young kids and I don’t want anything to do
with drug addicts.”
A few houses away, Carol Cierniakoski expressed thanks that a methadone
clinic might finally locate in Luzerne County. The 27-year resident said she
will do anything she can to help that effort.
“I think the area is desperate for it,” she said, noting that local addicts
must now drive to the closest methadone clinics in Allentown and New Jersey.
Cierniakoski said she has firsthand knowledge of those with heroin addictions.
“There are kids right in your own neighborhood,” she said. Cierniakoski
said a methadone clinic here might be the only way to get rid of those who
sell drugs to children. “Nobody can say it can’t happen to their kid.”
Next door neighbor Mike Rushton opposes the clinic’s location and is
concerned about the patients.
“You don’t know what will happen with all the people flowing through the
neighborhood,” he said. Rushton’s home is located in the Wilkes-Barre portion
of the manor and he said he therefore doesn’t have much say in what happens in
Plains Township.
Township police Chief Ed Walsh has concerns. He acknowledged that the
clinic’s clients will be carefully controlled and the facility must follow
numerous guidelines.
“Who is going to control them once they leave that property?” he asked.
Walsh said many people work in the area of the proposed clinic and his concern
is for them and for residents.
Walsh said he is contacting police departments in Phillipsburg, N.J., and
Allentown to inquire about changes in crime rates after their methadone
clinics opened.
“We don’t know what we’re going to be exposed to. It’s the unknown.”
Bonnie Adams, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7241.