By ANDY GARDNER
North Country Now

MASSENA -- A Liberty Avenue resident told the village board that he objects to a drug rehabilitation center that may be moving into the neighboring former Valhaven Nursing Home.

John McDougall told the board he doesn't want the "facility for druggies" to open at the former nursing home, 10 Woodlawn Ave.

"We try to keep our neighborhood halfway decent," he said. "I do not want this in my backyard … I don't want to move out of Massena."

I'm not against drug rehabilitation, but there's a place for it … out in the country," he said.

A woman who said she lives across from Valhaven asked Massena Police Dept. Lt. Jason Olson, who was at the meeting, if the rehab center could be an alternative to jailing people convicted of drug offenses.

Olson said in the case of a dealer, "it depends on their criminal history" and if it's a first offense.

"A lot of times, rehabilitation centers are for people who don't sell, they're people who suffer from the illness of addiction. They are not criminals," Lt. Olson said.

Mayor Tim Currier said the current zoning only allows single or double occupancy residential buildings.

"For anything different to come in there ... it would require a site plan review and approval which would require the new owner to go to the Planning Board to get that approval," Currier said. "It's not done in secrecy."

"The other option ... would require a zoning change. It's a very public process," according to the mayor. "Code enforcement would be heavily involved in anything that occurred."

The group trying to set up shop at the former Valhaven is called Team MRD, which offers a religious-based addiction recovery program.

The group's website, which lists their address at the former Valhaven and calls it a "wholeway house," says their director is Brian A. Hardie.

"Brian A. Hardie, has an apostolic gifting and anointing as a 'deliverer' for those in bondage to addictions. He has over a decade of experience in casting out demons, preaching, teaching, healing and laying on hands to fill those God desires with the Holy Ghost. He teaches scriptural doctrine of salvation IAW Acts 2:38," it says on the website, https://teammrd.org.