Anyone who thinks Middletown doesn’t have a widespread drug problem either has their head in the sand, waiting for the train to pass, are ignorant, uninformed or in total denial. All they need to do is read the weekly Middletown Police reports that I post here to know that there is a big, big problem. Every week the report is filled with the names of Middletown residents that have been arrested on various drug possession charges. If reading the police reports aren’t enough to convince you that there is a problem than take a look at the Methadone clinic on the corner of Apple Tree Farm Rd and Hwy 35 – if there isn’t a problem, why is it there? - Or talk to any Middletown high school student that you know and ask them if there is a problem, if they’re honest you’d be astonished. My son and a few of his friends have told me in the past that the hallways of his school are full of all kinds of drugs that can be easily scored at anytime. There are kids that sell drugs out of their lockers between periods and after school.
As a parent of a teenager, I’m concerned when I hear that drugs are as prevalent as they seem to be. It’s easy to dismiss what a handful of teenagers say and chalk it up as teenage angst or hyperbole, knowing what it was like when I was 17 years old and in high school. We all knew who the druggies were and where to get a couple of joints if that was what you were into, but today it’s different, we’re not talking about marijuana anymore, we’re talking heavy duty drugs like Heroine, methamphetamines and prescription drugs such as Oxycodine and Xanax. It’s scary how easy it is for kids to get a hold of this stuff and get hooked. That’s why it concerns me when I hear that Crossroads, the township sponsored substance abuse counseling center located at Middletown’s Croydon Hall complex, has been told that it must ” hit the road” to make room for the new, all girls “catholic school”,
Trinity Hall.
Back in January, the Middletown Township Committee passed
ORDINANCE # 2013-3076, leasing the former Parks & Recreation Administration Building on the Croydon Hall property, to Trinity Hall. Trinity Hall describes itself as an “independent all-girls high school in Monmouth County……. (Whose) mission purposely honors the values of Roman Catholicism – an objective valued by the school’s founders from the start.” The township ordinance refers to this temporary lease as “expanding educational opportunities in the community while also providing much needed funding for open space and recreational purposes, and resulting in certain capital improvements being made to the building.”, which is all well and good however, the Trinity Hall administrators have expressed concerns regarding the many individuals (both young and old) and families who utilize the services within Crossroads - Crossroads was opened in 1998 and is a short-term, outpatient treatment center which offers services at no charge to Middletown residents. It is a New Jersey State Licensed facility that provides education, consultation, assessment, treatment and referral assistance to all who need it. Crossroads provides several types of counseling services which includes individual adolescent and adult counseling, family counseling, and group counseling. Crossroads is also home to the Middletown Municipal Alliance for the Prevention of Substance Abuse.
Trinity Hall administrators don’t want any part of Crossroads or the many individuals that they provide services to at Croydon Hall, mingling among their student population and have told the township as much. Back in March, on the day before a parent meeting held in the Croydon Hall Gymnasium, Trinity Hall administrators had the township remove two identifying signs from the complex; One was removed from the main office building (the White House) and another from the entry sign leading into the Croydon Hall grounds so as not to raise concerns from the parents of potential students.
More recently, in order to accommodate Trinity Hall‘s administrators, staff, parents, and students and save the $285K the township will receive in lease payments along with a promise to upgrade the former Parks & Recreation building that will be used for the school over the next year and which is not currently necessary for any public purpose, township administrators have told Crossroads it must relocated to a new, as of yet, unnamed mystery location somewhere within Middletown.
Drug and alcohol abuse does not differentiate based on color, religion, political affiliation, social status, sex, age or for any reason, moving Crossroads - a program that has helped so many, is wrong.
This action by Middletown administrators demonstrate that for a few shekels of silver, the needs of many citizens of the township doesn’t matter when compared to the special interests and demands of Trinity Hall and the 30 or so soon to be enrolled students, few of which will be Middletown residents themselves.
