Last night, the Camden Zoning Board refused to show up and own their decision to approve a rule interpretation to allow a methadone clinic to move from downtown to Bergen Square. As a result, the adoption of the resolution was delayed until next month’s meeting. This post is about a board that was willing to approve a rule change for the clinic, but too ashamed to show up at the board meeting to put their own name on the resolution. But it’s also about the wider issue here — the important balance between neighborhood and treatment opportunities — is opposition of this methadone clinic in Camden different than opposition to a clinic in Pleasantville?  

First, last night. After over 100 people showed up to protest last month, there were only about 15 die hards at this meeting. It was a good thing they showed up, because what appeared to be a pro forma adopting of the resolution, turned into a game of hot potato where public officials refused to put their name on the resolution that they’d already voted for. 

That was true of a number of board members who voted “yes” then refused to show up to adopt the resolution this meeting. It was true of the board president, who voted “no” last month, but told protestors they were at the wrong meeting — now it was a “planning” issue. It was true of the only board member who voted “yes” who chose to attend the meeting — he had the power to adopt the resolution, but refused to be the only signature on it. 

I’m not going to blast each of these individuals by name — they’re in a difficult position as appointees who clearly received their marching orders last month in a likely illegal closed huddle in which officials told them this rule change had to pass. For zoning board members who work for the city or county, their livelihoods may be at stake if they oppose those who have appointed them. This is all going to end up in court, a result made more likely by the refusal to adopt the resolution which likely either delays the work in the planning board, or possibly renders planning board action moot upon legal challenge. 

But it’s clear that no one wants to take responsibility for this. And good for the dedicated protestors who showed up to make sure that board members had to face community.

That’s the update, but I wanted to touch on a piece written by the Inky’s Allison Steele that touches on some of the wider issues. Here’s the comparison she makes between Camden and Pleasantville:

Pleasantville Mayor Jesse Tweedle fought hard to stop a drug-treatment clinic from coming to his city. He and his constituents feared that if the John Brooks Recovery Center moved from Atlantic City into the end of a strip mall off the Black Horse Pike, the methadone dispensary would attract loiterers and problems. 

…

As Camden officials move forward on plans to relocate a methadone clinic from the heart of the city’s downtown to a semi-industrial section of Bergen Square about a mile away, the proposal has been met with anger from those who live and work nearby.

That article ends with this quote: 

“There were a lot of concerns, but really none of them have materialized,” he said. “It’s nothing like what people were worried about.”

Whew. A lot to unpack here, but I get the premise. The fundamental argument in this article is that NIMBYism is grounded in fear not reality. But that argument begs an underlying premise: that Camden, NJ and Pleasantville, NJ are appropriate comparisons. 

First of all, treatment is critical, and there need to be well-run facilities to help individuals get treatment. NIMBYism prevents that in many communities. In fact, clinics need to be near public transportation, located in epicenters of communities struggling with addiction processes, and be both well-run and serve an appropriate number of patients without spillover that negatively affects the surrounding community. More of this policy discussion should be about how we can create this world.

But that is not the world we live in, and placing a methadone clinic in Camden has never been about Camden itself. It has always been about finding the place least likely to resist, given the overwhelming NIMBYism of the surrounding communities. The systemic use of Camden as that place in this and other NIMBY debates cannot be separated from the fight of a neighborhood against the methadone clinic.

Camden is not, like Pleasantville, opposing a single facility in isolation. It is opposing a facility in the context of the wider injustices NIMBYism by the region has caused this neighborhood. The community already deals with facilities unwanted by the rest of the county (CCMUA, trash-to-steam plant), nuisance businesses (concrete plant, steel-crushing industry), and has a disproportionate amount of resources for people that the county doesn’t want to deal with — the homelessness services were cited as a positive benefit because it made Camden the epicenter of services for the addicted and the homeless. 

Opposing a methadone clinic when the wider county plan is to make your neighborhood the epicenter of county services the rest of the county does not want is different than opposing a clinic because you don’t want services provided in your town. 

Pleasantville is different than Camden, because the struggles of Camden’s neighborhoods are directly linked to the actions of communities like Pleasantville. This is not true the other way around. 

To critique Camden for its NIMBYism, when Camden is the dumping ground for regional NIMBYism, is to not only continue to perpetuate injustice, but it leaves Camden without even the same tools to attempt to protect its community as the rest of the region has. 

This entire process — like so many predatory decisions in the past — has been an elaborate bet that Camden wouldn’t have the resources to fight this clinic.

Camden Recovery Holdings LLC transparently targeted Camden for a clinic which has repeatedly struggled to avoid the negative repercussions associated with the worst-run clinics. Any resident of downtown is familiar with the open-air drug markets that pop up regularly around the clinic. Camden Recovery Holdings LLC knows that this model would not be tolerated in any other community. So on the same day in 2005 the LLC purchased multiple tracks of land in Camden — the place least likely to be able to fight back (info on properties via njpropertyrecords.com). 

The bet is simple. Even if this neighborhood fights back, they will move on to the next neighborhood without the resources to oppose.

That dynamic is part of the reason Camden faces so many challenges today; its surrounding region has dumped its problems into the city rather than face up to them. And it’s the reason that Camden’s opposition and Pleasantville’s NIMBYism are not the same thing. 

Tags: methadone clinic