Plans for youth treatment center dropped
PUBLISHED: January 29, 2011 at 12:00 am | UPDATED: September 14, 2018 at 12:00 am
OROVILLE — An east Oroville site reportedly is no longer being considered for a Youth Regional Treatment Center because of opposition from neighbors, Butte County supervisors and U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Rocklin.
Steven Zerebecki of Indian Health Service confirmed the agency would not continue pursuing the Honey Rock location on Oro Bangor Highway, but he could not comment on anything else.
"We"re looking at other sites," Zerebecki said. "I can"t say where."
Oroville City Councilor Gordon Andoe and Vivian Meyer, who owns Honey Rock, said Indian Health backed off because of the strong opposition from neighbors, supervisors and more recently from McClintock, who threatened to oppose federal funding because of opposition.
Meyer and her husband Bob operated a Christian school, a Christian retreat and at one time a place for troubled youth at Honey Rock for 30 years.
The troubled youth were out of high school and many wanted a retreat where they could get off of drugs.
"We never had any problems in 30 years," Meyer said.
Losing the facility means losing 70 jobs and a $4 million to $5 million operating budget that would have pumped money into the local economy, Andoe said. The $20 million construction project would also have benefited local businesses and workers.
The project was first talked about at an Oroville Rotary Club luncheon in early June 2009.
David Sprenger of California Area Indian Health Service outlined the plans for a facility that would treat American Indian and Alaskan Native youth 12 to 17 years old for alcohol and drug addictions.
At the Rotary meeting, Supervisor Bill Connelly spoke in favor of the project. Later, Connelly withdrew his support, saying his constituents had expressed opposition.
In mid-August 2009, neighbors of the Honey Rock site sponsored a meeting at the Foothill Community Church that represented the facility as a prison.
Andoe attended and said the information was not representative of Youth Regional Treatment Centers.
At that meeting and meetings that followed, the neighbors said the facility was a good idea but their foothill neighborhood was the wrong location.
That September, the project went before the Butte County Board of Supervisors as an informational item. All five supervisors opposed the proposed location.
In August 2010, Indian Health held another informational public meeting at the Southside Community Center. A couple hundred people showed up to oppose the center.
Another public meeting on the project at Gold Country Casino later that month saw opposition, but some local American Indians and representatives from tribes around the country showed up to give information about YRTCs and support the local project.
The centers are places of healing that use traditional and modern techniques to treat American Indian youth for substance abuse and family issues. The youth there do not have a history of violence.
The neighbors weren"t convinced.
Indian Health offered to fly neighbors to a center in Spokane, Wash., called the Healing Lodge of Seven Nations.
Andoe said the neighbors declined the offer, but he and his wife visited the facility. All the neighbors he talked to said they had opposed the center at first, but after it was in, they changed their minds because there had been no problems.
But in December, McClintock wrote a letter opposing the treatment center at Honey Rock, citing community opposition and poor community outreach.
Since then, Indian Health withdrew plans, although Zerebecki would not confirm the date of withdrawal.
Plans for a center in Northern California and a center in Southern California began in 1992 when former President Ronald Reagan signed amendments to the Health Care Improvement Act mandating the two federal facilities.
Staff writer Mary Weston can be reached at 533-3135 or mweston@orovillemr.com.