RENSSELAERVILLE — In the midst of widespread resentment toward a juvenile detention center in town, Cass Residential’s future remains uncertain.

The all-male juvenile detention center was converted last week to a facility to train new state employees.

Locals were pleased, but, once told youths may return to the facility, state and town officials, unions, and area residents continue to speculate about the state’s Office of Children and Family Service’s long-range plans.

State Senator Neil Breslin said yesterday he is trying to set up a meeting with Cass officials.

Breslin attended the February Rensselaerville town board meeting where Cass officials said a perimeter fence would be built and an emergency notification system would be installed to call residents in case of escapes.
"We want them to be more open and direct about their decisions," said Breslin. He added, "Rensselaerville residents deserve that. They don’t deserve to be misled."

Yesterday, Darcy Wells, spokeswoman for the Public Employees Federation, said that changing the facility from a juvenile-detention center to a training center violates a labor law enacted last year, which requires the state agency to give a 12-month notice. The law requires OCFS to give a year’s notice when making significant changes in its services or when making public employee staffing changes.
"The majority of staff at Cass will be retained on site to staff the training academy," OCFS spokesman Brian Marchetti said Tuesday, adding, "Remaining staff will be canvassed for voluntary redeployments."
Darcy responded by saying that converting the facility from a juvenile detention center to a training center is "a significant change."
"The reasons for the decision [to change] included the need for another training site," Marchetti said, adding, "We currently have an excess bed count in our facilities. As well as the savings that can be achieved by not putting up the fence."
Asked if the 200 new employees are needed in response to a projected increase of delinquent youths, Marchetti responded, "Youths are remanded to our care by the family courts"We don’t control the number of youths coming in."
Nearly 500 local residents signed a petition calling for Cass to close, and Alexander "Sandy" Gordon, an Albany County legislator, on behalf of the kitchen worker who was raped at the facility in December of 2004, read and presented it to the Rensselaerville Town Board in January.

Residents responded to the plans of a perimeter fence, saying it could result in more violent offenders being placed at the center. Residents also questioned the cost to taxpayers for raising the 16-foot tall fence.

The facility, classified as non-secure, had already undergone security improvements, which included added cameras and locks, Cass officials said last month.

The detention facility was vacated at the end of January after a petition signed by nearly 500 locals called for it to close, and no youths have returned since, according to Marchetti.
"At this time, no children will be placed at Cass," he said Tuesday.

"No master plan"

State Assemblyman John McEneny, who represents the Hilltown area, told The Enterprise yesterday that he received a call from Cass a week ago.
"No long-term decision has been made," he said, adding that there aren’t yet any guarantees on whether Cass will go back to its past use, stay a training facility, or proceed with plans to erect a fence. "No fence is going up right now," he said. Cass officials, he said, told him that no kids were at the facility.

Breslin told The Enterprise yesterday that he originally heard that Cass Residential would be a training center, then heard that its use as a training site might be on a temporary basis.

Last month, prior to OCFS Deputy Director Ed Ausborn and Cass’s director, Tim Kelso, attending Rensselaerville’s February town board meeting, McEneny said he was unsure about Cass’s future. He attended a meeting where the new governor rolled out his budget, which called for cuts in prison facilities. Shortly after, he said, Cass residents were removed. "I’m wondering if the state is thinking about phasing it out totally," he said of Cass a month ago.

McEneny cited Eliot Spitzer again yesterday.
"We have a new governor and a new administration".I think we can take them at their word that they don’t have a master plan yet," he said.
"If we saw them putting up a fence, we’d know," he said, adding, "I think [Cass] is what they said — a temporary training facility."

Reaction
Following the announcement last week that Cass would be a training center, residents "breathed a collective sigh of relief," said Rensselaerville Supervisor Jost Nickelsberg on Tuesday.
Bob Tomczak, who lives near Cass, said he was "elated," "relieved," and "surprised."
"Something set a fire under them," he said Tuesday, adding that he doesn’t know why the center’s mission was changed. "They’re so close-mouthed and bureaucratic. They hold back a tremendous amount of information."
Tomczak called Cass Residential "a poor neighbor" and "a poor public servant."
"I’m glad they shut it, but I’m not going to hold my breath," he said Tuesday, adding that OCFS "did an about-face" when its officials said they would erect a fence and then changed their minds.
"You could see the smiles," Supervisor Nickelsberg said of town residents when they heard the youth detention center had been converted to a training facility.
Nickelsberg said Tuesday he thought the decision was "a win for everybody" — for the people in town, especially those who were assaulted, for the significant number of townspeople who were nervous, for the kids at Cass, for the employees at Cass Residential, and for the state’s taxpayers.
"If they don’t give up, and they stay on something, there’s nothing the citizens can’t do," Nickelsberg said, adding that the government belongs to the people.

From an economic perspective, he said, it showed how a bunch of people can win.
"I’m really happy," he said Tuesday of Cass changing to a training facility, calling it "the best possible conclusion."
Yesterday, Nickelsberg chronicled the community’s experience, saying that two years ago, when a kitchen worker at the facility was raped, the community was outraged. For two years, he said, the people ignored what had happened. The escape of a youth from the facility in November, he said "really woke things up."
"People turned passionate," he said. The townspeople, he said, then came to the conclusion that the center should be closed.
"We’re determined," Nickelsberg said. "This is not a cost-effective, good place for a prison," he said. The town, he said, is "completely united." The town is not unified on many issues, he said, but, "This is one of the things that unites us."