NORWICH – Ever since the Valley Ridge Center For Intensive Treatment opened in Norwich in 2002, there have been at least three vacancies on the seven-member board that is state-mandated to serve as the community’s liaison.
Valley Ridge CIT is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. Approximately 60, 18-35 year-old, developmentally disabled males are held there. At any given time, nearly half, if not more, are Level 3 sex offenders.
OMRDD’s treatment program offers clinical services ranging from basic living skills to intensive anger therapy and relapse prevention services. Some therapies have included community outings.
The Board of Visitors, as it’s called, is responsible for consulting and advising with respect to community relations, conditions and programs at the facility and preliminary plans for construction and building alterations. The board is supposed to hold at least six bi-monthly meetings per year.
Though OMRDD operates the Valley Ridge, the state’s governor is charged with appointing community members to serve on the board. Neither former Governor George Pataki nor present Governor Eliot Spitzer have followed through on appointing individuals who have been recommended.
Board of Visitors Chairman Irad S. Ingraham said three individuals whom he asked more than two years ago to serve, and who had accepted, are still waiting to do their part for the community. “Replacing board members has been a difficult process,” he said recently.
A spokesperson for Governor Spitzer’s office said a number of appointments to boards across New York have been filled, but he was “not sure” where the appointment’s office was with background checks of Valley Ridge CIT prospects.
Ingraham, the former Chenango County Supreme Court Justice, said he would like to step down at the beginning of 2007. He has served with the following three members - all voluntary - since the group was formed: Stephen M. Bernardi of Norwich; Alan D. Pole, superintendent of the Board of Cooperative Educational Services; and Thomas M. Whittaker, former clerk and auditor of the Chenango County Board of Supervisors. (Tammy Carnrike, the past president of Commerce Chenango, stepped down before moving from the area in 2005.)
Pole said he received a letter from Senator Thomas Libous’ office inviting him on the board, but he was not sure of the selection criteria used. “I just remember that becoming a member was a lengthy process that took several months and a lot of paperwork,” he said.
Ingraham said the group attended classes in Schenectady to learn about Valley Ridge and the board’s role on behalf of the community.
The next meeting of the Board of Visitors is at 8 a.m. Thursday in the CIT’s Community Room at the City of Norwich-based Eaton Center. It is open to the public. Among other minutes taken from a meeting Sept. 19, the BOV inquired on the status of a 15-year old consumer who was described as “a very violent young man” who had caused “many issues among consumers” and had made “allegations of abuse” and was “involved in several physical interventions.” The minutes report that the BOV “strongly requested this consumer be removed from the CIT forthwith.”
Also according to the previous meeting’s minutes, it was reported that two consumers were graduated out of Valley Ridge and transferred to the Finger Lakes Developmental Disabilities Services Office. There were no court ordered releases. However, the minutes say that there is currently a delay in hearing dates for inmates within the Chenango County Courts system.
Plans for building a new wing on the east side of the facility are currently on hold. Officials had hoped to break ground in the spring.