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SCHENECTADY
Nonprofit eyes city for halfway house Community groups oppose planned facility
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

    A nonprofit organization that wants to open a halfway house for discharged federal prisoners at 908 State St. will discuss the project tonight in a community meeting.
    The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at State Street Presbyterian Church.
    Several community groups and residents said they would attend in opposition to the proposed facility.
    Firetree, of Williamsport, Pa., is proposing to open its fourth “community re-entry center” in the country in the former Mohawk Offi ce Products building. It would operate the facility under contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which has yet to sign off on the agreement.
    Firetree provides training and educational services to help former prisoners find jobs and return to society, said company president Allen Ertel.
    “We help them get jobs, and that helps them have a very good chance of being good citizens. All of our clients are employed before they are released,” he said.
    The organization has a fi ve-year lease-purchase agreement on the State Street property and plans to invest at least $750,000 into it. It may invest more should it decide to demolish two other buildings on the property, Ertel said.
    The halfway house would initially contain 16 beds for men and two beds for women, increasing to 32 beds for men and four beds for women. Ertel said the State Street facility would not accept people who committed violent crimes or predatory sex crimes.
    “We get a lot of white-collar criminals and a lot of people with drug or alcohol problems. They are caught with the drugs they were using,” he said.
    People would live at the house between six months and a year. They would be natives of Albany, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties who completed their prison terms and would be relocating to the area.
    Firetree first tried to establish the halfway house in Rotterdam and Colonie, but both towns denied the organization’s applications for zoning amendments. Ertel said the State Street facility does not require a zoning change and can therefore open without the city’s permission. .....................>>>>...................>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00103&AppName=1

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    Mayor Brian U. Stratton said the city cannot prevent Firetree from opening.
    “I told them they will not get my immediate support for this. It will be a problematic issue for the Hamilton Hill and Vale neighborhoods. I have issues about whether it is a good fit for the neighborhoods,” Stratton said.
    He added that Firetree needs to explain its project to the community, where it is facing resistance.
    “They need to go before the public. Sunshine is the best thing for this and to let all of that come out,” he said.
    Marion Porterfield, site coordinator for Schenectady Weed & Seed, said her organization and several others, including Better Neighborhoods Inc. and Schenectady Inner City Ministries, are against the Firetree project.
    “We want to see economic development in the community. We are saturated in terms of residential facilities located within our small community,” she said.
    An organization called the Hamilton Hill and Vale Community Planning Group, consisting of the previously mentioned groups, had set its own sights on the former Mohawk Office Products building. It wanted to establish a lunch facility, farmers market and eventually a community supermarket at the site to help bring fresh produce and healthier food to the community.
    “We have been looking at economic development in the community and targeted that building as a site for this market project,” Porterfi eld said.
    Ertel said Firetree brings both economic development and community services to the community. Its proposal calls for creating 40 jobs and rehabilitating a vacant building. He also said that the proposed facility would add stability to the community.
    Ertel sought to dispel fears that the former prisoners would be a threat.
    “People who come into our community want to be good. They are under our control, are supervised by us and they face the threat that if they screw up at all they will go back to prison,” Ertel said.
    He said the halfway house would not have bars on the windows and doors. But, he added, the residents “are not allowed to go out without our knowledge and without supervision, and no weapons are allowed of any kind. These people are waiting to get back into society and they do not want to get into trouble.”

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NEWS10 is following developing news of a double shooting in Schenectady.

We have been told one person was fatally shot in the head at Jerry Burrell Park, on the corner of Hamilton Hill and Schenectady Street.

Another person was shot on the corner Albany and Hulett Streets. Their condition is unknown.

The shootings are considered to be related, police are now pursuing suspects.

Stay with NEWS10 for more on this story.

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Better location could be found for parolees’ group home

    A group home proposed for up to 36 nonviolent federal prison parolees at the old Mohawk Offi ce Products store in Schenectady has been roundly panned by neighbors and city officials alike. It’s a mostly understandable reaction.
    How much sense does it make to house recently paroled drug offenders in the middle of two of the city’s most notorious drug neighborhoods, Hamilton Hill and Vale? Supposedly, the residents will be supervised ’round the clock, and won’t be allowed out to roam the neighborhood on their own. But where there’s a will, there’s a way; and if these people — all natives of Schenectady, Albany and Rensselaer counties — get an urge they can’t suppress, they’ll surely know where to go to score some drugs. And it won’t be very far.
    So why make it easy for them? Probably because nobody else — e.g. area towns, including Rotterdam and Colonie, where they’ve already tried to locate — will allow them. And in Schenectady — poor Schenectady — the zoning is right and the city can’t do anything to stop them. ............>>>>...............>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00702&AppName=1

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SCHENECTADY
Council voices opposition to halfway house
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The City Council is taking a stand against a proposed federal halfway house even though the council has no authority over the issue.
    The council agreed Monday to craft a resolution opposing Firetree, which wants to run a halfway house on State Street in the Hamilton Hill-Vale neighborhood. The halfway house would be used by prisoners from the Capital Region who are nearing the end of their sentence.
    Councilwoman Denise Brucker said nonprofits are a “drain on city services” because they don’t pay taxes.
    Councilman Joseph Allen added that a halfway house would “add to the negativity” of the neighborhood, where drug dealers sell openly on some street corners and a child walking to the park was recently shot in the head by attackers who were allegedly aiming at his older brother.
    The council plans to vote on the resolution next Monday. .................>>>>......................>>>>.................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01105&AppName=1

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SCHENECTADY
Council opposed to new halfway house Residents say city needs jobs, not rehab program
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The Schenectady City Council unanimously approved a heartfelt but powerless resolution Monday opposing a halfway house in the Hamilton Hill/Vale neighborhood.
    Residents praised the council even though it has no authority over the proposal to bring federal prisoners to a facility on State Street. All the prisoners are originally from this area.
    Residents said they support halfway houses, which are intended to reduce recidivism by helping prisoners get jobs and arrange safe housing before release. But they insisted the Hamilton Hill/Vale area could not support it.
    “There’s a major saturation of these types of facilities in our community,” said Weed and Seed coordinator Marion Porterfi eld.
    There are two residential facilities on Hamilton Hill for parolees right now, with 16 and 18 beds each. Along with parolees, those facilities house drug addicts and alcoholics who voluntarily sign up for help.
    In addition, the Rev. Peter Young has converted a vacant monastery into a 30-bed dormitory for nonviolent parolees who have already made it through drug and alcohol rehabilitation and want to attend Schenectady County Community College.
    There is also a facility for the chronically homeless — Bethesda House runs a 12-bed house on State Street.
    That’s a total of 76 beds in a neighborhood of 3,941 housing units, according to the city’s most recent data.
    Vickie Hurewitz, the board president of Better Neighborhoods Inc., said the residential programs could be taking valuable commercial space in the neighborhood.
    She called for a moratorium on “any development of a social services program” on State Street between Veeder Avenue and Route 7.
    “We really need to keep the space on State Street available for the economic development that’s going on in Schenectady,” she said.
    Resident Vince Riggi took another tack, saying that some prisoners would inevitably add to the city’s crime problem.
    “We have major problems in all the neighborhoods of Schenectady,” he said. “All the neighbor- hoods have problems with drugs and whatnot. It’s all over. I’m not opposed to people being rehabilitated but we don’t need to add to those problems.”
    The Rev. Van Stuart agreed, saying that halfway houses — known as “community re-entry centers” — can be a valuable program, but not here. The city needs to create jobs instead, he said.
    “Then — whether they’re re-entry or not — they can have opportunities,” he said.
    Firetree, which has proposed building and running the halfway house, has argued that its facility would bring 40 jobs to the neighborhood.
    However, that has failed to persuade those who would live nearby.
    The halfway house would initially contain 16 beds for men and two beds for women, increasing to 32 beds for men and four beds for women.
    Organizers said the facility would not accept people who committed violent crimes or predatory sex crimes. ....................................>>>>................>>>>................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00700&AppName=1

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SCHENECTADY
Halfway house may be halted
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    Schenectady may have come up with a way to stop the halfway house for federal parolees proposed for Hamilton Hill.
    A moratorium on all new residential group homes may be possible, city Assistant Corporation Counsel John Polster said. But a draft of the moratorium won’t be ready until September and the council has not yet taken any action on the idea.
    Polster argued that the moratorium was not designed just to stop Firetree from opening a halfway house for federal prisoners in Schenectady, although City Council members proposed it in response to complaints about that project.
    “There have been discovered areas that were given a lack of consideration in the comprehensive plan,” Polster said. “We want time to do a review.”
    The comprehensive plan, which was completed in late 2008, does not restrict halfway houses on State Street where it cuts through the Hamilton Hill and Vale neighborhoods.
    Firetree proposed building there largely because halfway houses are allowed in that zone. But that’s also prime commercial space — and residents begged the council to stop the project to make room for tax-paying companies that might provide more jobs. ..................>>>...................>>>>......................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01103&AppName=1

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SCHENECTADY
City sets hearing to block halfway houses
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The City Council has suddenly accelerated its efforts to stop halfway houses from opening in the city.
    As Firetree fi led paperwork with the city’s Planning Commission to open a halfway house on State Street in Hamilton Hill, the City Council decided to set a special meeting to fulfill a legal requirement that must be met before Firetree can be stopped.
    The council wants a moratorium on all residential group homes while it reconsiders its zoning and decides where halfway houses could locate.
    But it can’t vote on the moratorium until it holds a public hearing — and legally, the hearing must be at least 10 days after it is announced.
    That means the earliest the hearing could be held would be next Wednesday. So the council has decided to have a special meeting that Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. solely to get the moratorium in place.
    A representative for Firetree said the effort is clearly designed to stop its project.
    “It would cause irrepairable harm to Firetree. Obviously it’s intended to single Firetree out,” Thomas Griffen said.
    He added that Firetree is willing to work with the Planning Commission. ......................>>>>.......................>>>>......................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00902&AppName=1