Sex offender facility won't go to Strong
Residents feared pa tients would be near school
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
STRONG — The community here is up in arms over fears that either a Farmington psychologist was moving to Main Street near the elementary school to treat sex offenders or a mental health agency would be there counseling pedophiles.
Neither is true.
Richardson Hollow Mental Health Services Inc. of Lewiston will be the new tenant at the former Strong Area Health Center but its clients are community children and adolescents with mental disabilities or developmental disabilities and their families. The center will open in June, according to spokeswoman Linda Hartell.
The building next to the new HealthReach Network clinic will be used as a base for case managers who provide services at clients' homes. The office is relocating from Skowhegan, Hertell said.
Farmington psychologist William S. Tanner, who treats anger management, substance abuse, and provides jail services and court-ordered, in-home supervision, said he had no idea how he got involved in the rumors.
Earlier this year, Tanner tried to establish a group home in the Avon/Phillips area for discharged patients with a criminal background being released from the Augusta Mental Health Institute. That project was angrily resisted by residents and Tanner quashed his plans.
"I have no interest in the building in Strong. I have no clients in Strong. And I have no pedophiles as clients. I have one sex offender client and he does not even live in Franklin County," said Tanner, who owns Community Correctional Alternatives on High Street in Farmington.
"We have no plans for Strong or Phillips. We learned our lesson," he said.
Some parents from the Strong area and from Farmington are also scrutinizing the security of Tanner's office, a block away from the Mallett Elementary School and across the street from the Farmington Public Library. They worry about Tri-County Mental Health Services three doors down on High Street.
Janine Winn, director of SAVES, Franklin County's rape crisis center, said some parents are now saying they are concerned about both mental health facilities and their proximity to children.
"It is tempting for a sex offender to find a reason to go there," she said.
But Tanner said Tuesday the only services provided at the office are evening anger management classes, attended primarily by juveniles.
"We do not have high-risk clients and none are referred to us. There are no sex offenders in that building, and the adolescents in anger management classes come in long after school is over," he said.
Hertell, whose agency also works with adults with mental issues, said she understands the concerns about keeping convicted sex offenders away from children.
"But the community needs to realize that people with varying kinds of disorders need to be in treatment. The worse case scenario is when they are hidden and nobody knows they are there, and they are preying on kids and not getting the treatment they need," she said.
Betty Jespersen — 778-6991
bjespersen@prexar.com