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By LAUREN ROTH lroth@leader.net
Thursday, March 13, 2003 Page: 1A
For the Record: 3/14/03 Comments during Wednesday’s meeting about the
planned opening of a Plains methadone clinic were attributed to the wrong
Harold Phoenix, in a page 1A story Thursday. The resident who spoke up is
Harold H. Phoenix from the Parsons section of Wilkes-Barre.
WILKES-BARRE – About 150 people packed into the Scott Street firehouse
garage in Parsons on Wednesday night to air strongly-held beliefs about a
possible methadone clinic in Plains Township.
The city administration feels Wilkes-Barre has a legal say because a
city-owned soccer field is near the proposed Laird Street site. The lawyer for
Wyoming Valley Health Care System, which would oversee the proposed clinic,
disputes the city has legal standing.
At the meeting, Mayor Tom McGroarty promoted a petition protesting the
clinic and said the city would decide about suing the hospital in two weeks.
Kate Smith of Wilcox Drive summed up the feelings of about a dozen of the
speakers when she said: “I don’t oppose methadone, I just don’t want it in my
backyard. Put it in Kingston, Plymouth, wherever.”
Slightly fewer people spoke up to support the clinic’s proposed location.
Linda Stetz of George Avenue pleaded with her neighbors. “Don’t turn your
back on these children and adults. It’ll hit home if it hasn’t already.”
Stetz later walked out of the meeting after verbally sparring with another
speaker and police Chief Tony George.
Stanley Fiedorczyk of Brader Drive said he would support a methadone clinic
if methadone provided a cure for heroin addiction. But, unlike some of his
neighbors, “I don’t even know if I agree with a methadone clinic.
“Law enforcement does not think methadone is good,” said Fiedorczyk, a
correctional officer at Luzerne County Correctional Facility. He said he sees
many addicts through his work.
But several recovering addicts disagreed with him.
“People want to oppose this but nobody has any other solution,” said
Jeanette Good, 20, of Kingston. “Methadone was the biggest commitment of my
life, bigger than heroin.” She rides six days a week to Phillipsburg, N.J.,
with several other area patients to get methadone. Four attended the meeting.
“I don’t rob or steal on methadone. I used to, I’m not proud of it. But I
don’t understand why people oppose (a clinic),” she said. Recovering addicts
“are normal, normal people, like in this community.”
Wilkes-Barre Crime Watch President Charlotte Raup said her brother is an
addict. “He can’t wait ’til a methadone clinic opens. But I oppose it. I want
him to come clean. They substitute one drug for another.”
The president of the Wilkes-Barre Storm soccer club, which plays at the
field, said he doesn’t want to see a clinic nearby. “We’ve been trying to
keep kids from partying there. There’s a nice, wooded area with lots of
concealment about 500 feet away,” said Tony Grzesek of Scott Street. “People
drop their kids off (at the field) ’cause they feel they are safe.”
But several neighbors spoke up to say it’s not methadone making their
neighborhood unsafe, it’s heroin and other drugs. Harold Phoenix of Crescent
Avenue said a man with bloodshot eyes pounded on his door looking for drugs
during a winter snowstorm this past year because he mistook his home for a
nearby drug house. “We can be in denial. But some people in this room have to
live with it,” he said.