McCleary hearing discusses treatment facilities

The hearing examiner will recommend where a potential residential treatment facility can be located.

A public hearing to decide zoning for mental health facilities in the City of McCleary lasted about an hour and a half and saw lively public comment, including comments from Jim Hargrove, a former state senator.

Background

A residential treatment center — an inpatient mental health facility for patients from throughout the region who are usually seen on an involuntary basis — is being proposed for the old Mark Reed Hospital building.

The Mark Reed Hospital building was vacated by the hospital in 2013 when Summit Pacific Medical Center opened in Elma. Then the building housed the McCleary clinic until spring 2016 when a new clinic was opened at downtown McCleary. The building has since been vacant.

Great Rivers Behavioral Health Organization (a five-county agency that handles mental health funding) recently received a $2 million grant to open a residential treatment center. After a search throughout Grays Harbor County, the BHO decided on the former Mark Reed Hospital building in McCleary. While the grant was not enough to build a new facility, the $2 million is expected to cover the remodeling of the old Mark Reed Hospital.

The issue is the old hospital building is in a residential zone. To be more specific, it abuts a neighborhood, and neighbors are apprehensive about what a residential treatment facility might bring.

City leadership, too, has been apprehensive about the facility. Following the announcement of the grant and the intent to house the facility at the old hospital building, the McCleary City Council began discussing changes to city code.

Initially, conversations about city code and zoning changes directly referenced the potential facility. But early this year, the tone changed to be a more generalized discussion of treatment facilities and hospitals.

In April, the council approved definition changes to city code. Those changes separately and specifically define residential treatment facilities and hospitals.

With the new definitions, the question arose — can the residential treatment facility legally be housed within a residential zone?

The council sent the matter to the city’s hearing examiner for a recommendation.

Comments on zoning

During a hearing on May 16, city hearing examiner Neil Aaland heard comments from the public. Some 50 people attended the hearing which was held at the McCleary VFW Hall to accommodate the crowd.

Though Aaland had specifically asked that the comments should address only city zoning and not the specific facility, most of the comments either discussed the specific facility or countywide mental health needs.

Stephen Bean, an Olympia attorney representing a handful of residents, attempted to highlight that the facility would be a nonconforming use and shouldn’t be allowed.

“This really isn’t a question of whether Grays Harbor should have a mental health treatment center — it’s a question of where it can be legally located,” Bean said. “To put a non-conforming use into a residential neighborhood is not favored in the law. By definition, it’s not conforming. There are other places it can go. You don’t put it in a neighborhood.”

Stephen Bean also referenced the state Growth Management Act.

Maren Blankenship, too, directly addressed zoning issues.

“This modification would likely create a fundamental change in the single-family character of the R1 zoning,” Blankenship said. “I grew up in this town, and I don’t want to see something like this effect this town in those kind of ways.”

If the residential treatment facility comes to fruition, Telecare (the company hired by the BHO to operate the facility) plans to erect a fence. Blankenship said the fence height also violates city code.

Great Rivers BHO CEO Marc Bollinger however said recent changes to city code were drafted and approved to specifically impede the treatment center.

“A residential treatment facility should be permitted in the City of McCleary and there should not be unreasonable and discriminatory restrictions placed upon the residential treatment facility,” Bollinger said. “Since hospitals are allowed in residential zones, residential treatment facilities which are less intensive should be allowed as conditional uses.”

“There were no concerns voiced about that facility when it was delivering general medical services, but because the populations being served have behavioral health needs, some in the community are working to bar the use of this facility,” he said. “Don’t discriminate against this group.”

Bollinger supplied McCleary City Council meeting minutes to the hearing examiner which details “discussions among council members and community members about the rationale about the changes in the ordinance.”

Additional comments

Bollinger was not the only speaker to accuse the city of attempting to impede the proposed residential treatment center.

Grays Harbor County Commissioner and BHO representative Vickie Raines didn’t mince words about the city’s actions.

“It’s important to note that the recent zoning change was specifically done to not allow the facility that’s been discussed, and that’s very challenging for us,” Raines said.

Raines provided written comments to the hearing examiner from Grays Harbor County Sheriff Rick Scott and former public health director Joan Brewster. She also implored the community to support the project.

“I hope the public can acknowledge that while it’s been said ‘Not in my backyard,’ the people we serve in this community deserve to have this treatment available to them,” she said.

Gloria Hale, a resident, noted that she didn’t believe a residential treatment facility wasn’t needed, but she did feel it would be out of place at the proposed site.

“It’s not that we don’t think (the proposed facility is needed) — we do,” she said. “We don’t think it needs to be at the old Mark Reed Hospital.”

Former state sen. Jim Hargrove had said during his comments that the facility would be an economic boon to the city, specifically the utility costs the facility is expected to pay to the city. Other comments in favor of the facility had said it would lead to jobs in McCleary.

Hale disagreed that jobs would directly benefit McCleary residents.

“All of these people who came up and spoke about (needs), would they live next door to it? I don’t think so,” Hale said. “Most of the people here in McCleary will not get hired at the hospital. People here in McCleary either work somewhere else or they don’t work period. I don’t see what positions are going to open for people of McCleary there. Maybe custodial, maybe a cook.”

Otis Leathers noted that he had been treated for bipolar disorder at the former Mark Reed Hospital.

“The facility at Mark Reed treated me for my mental illness, and I think that it should be able to continue to do just that,” Leathers said.

While not all fifty people spoke during the public hearing, there was a strong showing both for proponents and opponents of the proposed facility.

Aaland said he would deliberate over the next several weeks and would supply the city with a recommendation.