PORT JERVIS – Mayor Kelly Decker is urging Port Jervis city residents to oppose a plan by Cornerstone Family Healthcare to consider establishing a stand-alone methadone/suboxone clinic at the Hunt Building at 123 Pike Street “in our downtown business district.”
Decker said he and the common council only learned of the proposal last Tuesday and they believe a clinic should not be located there.
The mayor is calling on city residents to speak up against the plan at public meetings and write in opposition to the leadership of Cornerstone.
Decker said he opposes creating a clinic anywhere downtown and suggested during an April 2017 meeting with Cornerstone officials that a clinic should be established in a medical/hospital setting.
The mayor agreed “there is a drug problem here and again that the problem is in every municipality in our country but I also know that no treatment is full proof. I certainly want to make sure and provide that those that help and want to get better, can.” But, Decker said he did not want “to give those that take advantage of the system an outlet to cause any further damage to our community.”
He said if the plan is actually proposed, the city and its attorney will consider what it can do to block it from establishing in the business district.
