SEQUIM – More than 500 people opposed to a proposed Medically Assisted Treatment center for opioid addiction in Sequim, crammed a meeting with the city council.
Last night’s meeting was moved to the Guy Cole Convention Center.
City council members and staff heard plenty of testimony from residents outlining why they don’t want a MAT center in Sequim. Most say they fear the clientele at the clinic will degrade Sequim and bring down property values.
Valerie Shaw was one of them. Her family owns the property next door to the proposed facility.
I’m sure that you feel that the clinic is a good thing. I am sure the tribe is going to say that they will not let people loiter. Well, we are the property they are going to loiter on. My mother is a widow if my father were alive right now, he would be here but he’s not and I’m here in his place. We’ve been here since the 1890s. That farm has been there since 1931 and you’re going to destroy it if you let them build up there. The traffic will increase. The noise will agitate our animals, they will not feed. If this is open 24 hours a day, six days a week; where are our animals going to go? How are we going to keep the farm going?
The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe wants to build its “Healing Campus” on a 20-acre site near Sequim’s Costco.
The campus will be built in two phases. Phase 1 would be the Medication Assisted Treatment (or MAT) facility, designed to address the opioid crisis. Tribal officials say it would only treat patients from Clallam and Jefferson counties.
A second phase would partner Olympic Medical Center, Jefferson Healthcare, Forks Community Hospital and Peninsula Behavioral Health, to provide a broad spectrum of services including in-patient mental health care and evaluation.
The tribe has not yet submitted an official application for the project with the city of Sequim.
Meantime, the tribe will host its own public meeting on the proposal August 8th. They have moved that to the Guy Cole Convention Center, it had been planned for a site on the tribe’s reservation in Blyn.