The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

How the General Assembly would do that is uncertain, but House Majority Leader Richard Cathcart said lawmakers will act next week before going on a two-week break to let the Joint Finance Committee start its rewrite of Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's $3.24 billion operating budget for fiscal 2008.

"I think Sen. [James] Vaughn and I are both upset that this is going forward and that the administration isn't listening to the concerns of the citizens in Delaware City," said Cathcart, R-Middletown, whose district includes Delaware City. "We need to act quickly because it's supposed to open June 1, but we'll see."

Secretary of Health and Social Services Vincent Meconi said lawmakers should move carefully when it comes to taking action on the department's plan because it might open the state up for a lawsuit.

"We have to defend a lot of lawsuits in this department," he said. "But I think we'd have a hard time defending a suit saying that we discriminated against these people by saying they couldn't have a group home there. ... That's why I urged the [Joint Bond Bill] committee to move very carefully with this."

Meconi said the pilot program would provide services for people who have demonstrated the offensive behaviors, which can include masturbating in public and offensive touching. The individuals have not faced criminal charges because they lack the mental capacity to realize their actions are wrong.

Meconi told the committee that none of the initial five people in the pilot program are on criminal sex offender lists.

"When I was a legislator, I was in their place," he said. "I understand their concerns. But if we move it, there will be another upset state senator and representative. ... If they give this a chance, I think they'll find that a lot of these objections go away after this has been open for a year and nothing bad has happened."

But that didn't satisfy citizens from Delaware City who showed up at the Bond Bill Committee's Thursday meeting to put their objections on the record.

Nor did it assuage Vaughn, D-Clayton, who weighed in through a letter read by Richard Carter, the Senate Democrats' chief of staff. Vaughn said he supports the need for providing services to the developmentally disabled, but he said the state should explore using different locations.

Vaughn said Governor Bacon Health Center is a bad location because of its proximity to Fort DuPont State Park and to Delaware City.

"If there were no other locations in the state where this type of facility could be located so as to greatly minimize any risks to the surrounding area, the department could make a good case that locating it at Governor Bacon Health Center is necessary," Vaughn wrote. "This is not the case. It could be located at Stockley Center or at the Delaware Psychiatric Center on the grounds of the department's Herman M. Holloway Sr. Campus in New Castle."

Rita Marocco, a Delaware City resident and executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Delaware, said her group, which operates 57 group homes around the state, objects to the plan because placing people who exhibit sexually offensive behaviors in proximity to the town and park runs counter to one of the group's placement rules.

"We ask if we would want to live in the same neighborhood as the home," she said.

Meconi said he was stung by the opposition of an advocacy group, and lawmakers said those objections scored points with them.

"When they're saying they have a problem, it bothers me," said Sen. Robert Venables, D-Laurel. "I think a lot of members on the committee have problems with this. I wouldn't be surprised to see [lawmakers] do something about this."

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070511/NEWS/70511
0358/1006/NEWS