SAUGUS — A proposal from Commonwealth Care Alliance, a Boston-based nonprofit offering health care services, to open a location on Walnut Street faced a harsh rebuke from the Board of Selectmen as well as a number of residents during a public hearing Tuesday night, leading the company to withdraw its proposal after the board indicated it would not support the plan.
The chief concern voiced by board members and residents was safety, as the Walnut Street location abuts a residential neighborhood and is situated within a half-mile of two early childhood education centers. CCA had applied to the board for a special permit to open a second “Marie’s Place” location, which would offer short-term care that can’t be done inside the home at 92-94 Walnut St. The company operates a Marie’s Place in Brighton, and the location would serve as an alternative to hospital care, according to Vice President of Integrative Program Development and Clinical Innovation Lauren Easton.
Easton told the board that the company was seeking to open a 10-bed facility inside the two-story building on Walnut Street, which currently sits vacant. She said the company has been “built on community partnerships” and seeks to offer care for individuals with “complex medical needs.”
CCA is seeking to open a location in Saugus because of the number of members along the North Shore, with thousands living within 10 miles of the proposed location in town. The average length of stay for a patient at Marie’s Place is five days, Easton said.
“Saugus was a great location for us to start developing the benefits that we had lost during the pandemic, also to think about primary care access. Many of our folks need more access to primary care,” she said. “We needed another site that they could have closer access to primary care.”
Easton said a large portion of the patients served at Marie’s Place are over the age of 65, and the company has had no issues while up and running in Brighton.
“We currently have a free-standing Victorian home in Brighton, that is our current medical stabilization. That has 14 beds, and again we’ve had incredible success with the program. It backs up against a beautiful neighborhood in Brighton [near] multimillion-dollar homes. People are at times transported by ambulance, we have not had a single complaint in the eight years that we’ve been operating this facility,” she said.
Jeff Cicolini was the most vocal member of the board in voicing concerns about the proposal, saying he believed there was a need for a facility like the one CCA was proposing, but he could not support it in its current form.
“The concern that I have, a large concern that you’re going to hear from the residents here, obviously is respite services. It’s not the day services and pediatric care or the care that physicians will give counseling services, it’s the respite services, the overnight care,” he said, asking Easton if she could clarify whether or not the facility would be staffed 24/7, and if CCA would operate a “locked” facility.
Easton said the facility would not lock overnight, but would be staffed around the clock, and explained patients would be at Marie’s Place voluntarily receiving care.
“The facility’s unlocked but … people do not leave. They are there for acute care, they’re willing to come they’re not mandated to come. They want the care, so the facility is not locked, it doesn’t necessitate a locked facility because people aren’t leaving, they’re coming there for care, they’re wanting to be there.”
Cicolini said he was concerned that just because no one has left the Brighton facility, there remains a chance someone could wander out of the Saugus facility into a residential neighborhood.
“The concern is not that it’s common that people leave. It’s the fact that it could be possible that they could leave and that’s the concern. There’s a lot of neighborhoods and some very high-end neighborhoods in that area that have older kids or aging parents and they have what I consider to be very valid concerns,” he said. “We already have in town the Salvation Army, which is a residential facility on Route 1. We also have a methadone clinic in town and we already just put in a bylaw change to potentially allow marijuana dispensaries in town. I personally [am] struggling with the location being … suitable for this organization.”
“I have major concerns about the safety, or lack thereof, at this facility given its location, surrounded by residential neighborhoods,” he continued.
Chair Anthony Cogliano added that he supported the need for treatment for addiction-related issues, but could not back the proposal to open a facility in the neighborhood CCA was seeking.
“I’m well aware of the tremendous problem we have with substance abusers in town, I speak to our police chief, our detectives constantly regarding it and I think facilities like this are necessary, however, this is the absolute wrong location for it,” Cogliano said.
The board voted unanimously to enter the meeting into recess once it became clear that all five members were opposed to CCA’s proposal, allowing the company the opportunity to reconsider its options.
Attorney Adam Barnosky asked the board to move to continue the hearing to its next meeting, but Cicolini and Cogliano indicated that they would not do so unless the company guaranteed that they would not be moving forward with their proposal for respite care at the site. Barnosky said the company was not comfortable doing so, leaving them with the option of allowing the proposal to move forward to certain defeat from the board or withdrawing the proposal.
Cicolini noted that should the proposal be voted on and shot down by the board, CCA could not reapply for the permit for two years. After conferring, Barnosky told the Board that CCA intended to withdraw its proposal, a move the board allowed.
In a brief interview following the meeting, Cicolini said respite care “breeds a different type of risk” than traditional primary care appointments, leading to the discomfort with CCA’s proposal.
Cicolini emphasized the main hurdle to the proposal was the location and said it was his obligation as a member of the board to support constituents.
“The appetite would be there if it was in a more commercially zoned area,” he said. “We have to take constituents’ opinions into account [and] we heard them loud and clear.”
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].