RM'S DECISION ON DETOX CENTRE EXPECTED IN MAY

The Rural Municipality of Corman Park council will vote in the third
week of May on whether to allow construction of a new youth drug
treatment centre on land next to the Saskatoon Christian School, the
Saskatoon Health Region (SHA) says.

Shan Landry, vice-president of community services for the SHA, said
at Wednesday's health region board meeting that staff are trying to
assuage any fears the detox centre will pose a danger to its neighbours.

Board members asked Landry questions about who is worried about the
centre, whether opposition to the project is growing or subsiding and
whether a fence could be installed around the centre to separate the
facility from the school.

Landry didn't know whether a fence is possible. Work on the
preliminary design for the facility is still taking place.

There will be staff at the site around the clock, she said. She also
pointed to Calder Centre, an addiction treatment centre currently
operating in Eastview. Neighbours there support the facility and have
had no security problems, she said.

It's hard to tell whether concern is waning, but the amount of
opposition is "considerable," Landry said.

The region has its sights on an 11.7-acre parcel of land southeast of
the city for a 24-bed youth stabilization centre for teens with
addiction problems. Six of those beds will be for kids who have been
ordered into treatment by a judge.

The proposal has raised the ire of some of the parents of the 256
students who attend the Saskatoon Christian School, located next to
the site of the proposed detox centre.

Parents are worried youth may wander from the treatment facility to
the schoolyard. They're also concerned visitors to the centre will
include drug dealers, enabling the youth to use drugs while in treatment.

"The proximity of such a unit to the school portends a viable ground
for recruitment of vulnerable schoolchildren into the drug fi eld,"
the school's board wrote in a letter to the RM. The Saskatchewan
Party has also said it opposes the proposed detox centre's location.

Health region board member Steven Tokarski wanted to know if the
region has another site in mind, should the current location not work out.

Landry said the current proposed site is ideal for the centre,
because it's close to the city but in a natural setting that will
give patients room for recreation and cultural activities outside.

"We have not, at this time, got a whole other series of options,"
Landry said. "It will certainly be our intention, if this is not
approved . . . to look in that surrounding area and look in Corman
Park and say, 'Is there something else?' " A joint planning
commission will look at the health region's proposal for the land in
the second week of May, Landry said.

During the third week of May, the region will give a presentation on
the centre at a public hearing, and then the RM council will vote on
whether to allow a zoning change that would permit the health region
to build the detox centre.

The new youth stabilization centre is part of the province's Project
Hope strategy announced in 2005 to tackle substance abuse and
addiction across Saskatchewan.