Articles & News

March 17, 2009

State of VT mulls restoring town probation office
By Gordon Dritschilo Staff Writer
MIDDLEBURY — The Department of Corrections will look at bringing the probation and parole office back to Middlebury.

The department closed the Middlebury office earlier this year because of budget cuts. Corrections Commissioner Andrew Pallito met with about two dozen representatives of Addison County organizations and private citizens Monday to discuss the decision.

By the end of the meeting, Pallito and state probation and parole head Jacqueline Kotkin had agreed to form two "working groups," one to look for an office and the other to look at other ways to increase probation officers' presence in the community.

The department divided Middlebury's probation officers between the Rutland and Burlington offices, where they continue monitoring Addison County offenders from the Rutland and Burlington offices. Officers also work out of the Middlebury District Court building two days a week.

Pallito said closing the office should save Corrections about $100,000 a year and that the department picked Middlebury because they believed they could close that office without compromising public safety. He and Kotkin said offenders in the area were just as supervised as before.

Addison County State's Attorney John Quinn and others at the meeting argued that one of the reasons the local probation office was effective was the way related organizations in the county worked together. Taking them out of the county made that synergy harder to achieve.

Melissa Deas, coordinator of the Domestic Abuse Education Program, said when someone misses an appointment with her, the probation officers have usually been able to find him that day. Now, without them there full time, she said people feel unsafe.

"I don't have the probation officers here to back me up," she said. "They're the ones who know these people as well as I do."

Assistant State's Attorney Chris Perkett said defense attorneys were already starting to argue that their clients should not be placed on probation because it is too difficult for them to get to the Burlington or Rutland offices.

Several people suggested the department could use the basement of the Frank Mahady Courthouse. Court Clerk Chip Epperson said the basement was unused but would need renovations.

Rep. Michael Fisher, D-Lincoln, said he believed the state could get the office back into its previous home on Exchange Street, where the Agency of Human Services still rents several other offices, at no cost if it was willing to sign a five-year lease.

Guy Norwood, a property management specialist at the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services, said there were air-quality concerns at that building.

Pallito and others agreed it would be best to have a group assemble a list of options. Kotkin said she would also speak with her staff and others from the meeting about nonfacility related ways to let officers spend the time in the community people at the meeting were asking for.

gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com