SMOC’s Misinformation

Letter to the Boston Globe
June 26, 2005

Re: June 16 article "Nonprofit official decries criticism"

Dear Sir,

As a homeowner living very near 517 Winter Street, which South Middlesex Opportunity Council says will house a drug rehabilitation program, I feel I need to clarify some concerns that I believe I share with many of my neighbors.

When SMOC executive director Jim Cuddy says "there's a lot of misinformation being spread," he could well be referring

• to SMOC's lack of public relations effort regarding abutters and neighbors;
• to SMOC's arrogance in listing Selectman Charles Sisitsky as a board member without consulting him; and
• to SMOC's recent "bait-and-switch" attempt to change the purpose of a SMOC drug clinic in Worcester, in response to which State Senator Chandler was moved to cancel $200,000 in funding slated to support SMOC's clinic.

It strikes me as arrogant that a non-profit corporation like SMOC would site a drug rehab in this neighborhood, with its many schoolchildren boarding buses daily on either side of 517 Winter, without publicly demonstrating that the facility will be secure and professionally staffed. That's my main concern; contrary to Cuddy's implication that people like me argue that "nonprofits don't give back to the community," I otherwise agree with the stated purpose of rehabilitating drug abusers. I believe my neighbors agree.

As to the question of whether all SMOC's tax-exempt facilities truly serve an educational purpose: SMOC might serve educational purposes even better if they helped fund our school system by voluntarily contributing towards Framingham's tax revenues, as suggested in Town Meeting recently.

Yours truly,

Timothy D. Alexander,
Framingham

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