Trustee wants drug rehab center at D-QU
Calling it a “wonderful” idea, one D-Q University board member supports the federal government’s proposal to buy some university land and help young Native Americans kick their habits.
University trustee Susan Reece said it’s been her “personal dream” to help D-QU students with drug and alcohol abuse problems. She hopes to piggyback off the federal government’s facility sometime in the future and start something specifically for students.
“The project is a very good one,” Reece said. “I’d like to see it at D-QU.”
The Indian Health Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, wants to build a 32-bed drug treatment center on 12 acres of the school’s 642-acre spread. The project would cost $17.6 million to plan and finish, and would serve drug and alcohol abusers ages 12 to 17 starting in mid-2014.
Once built, the center would employ 70 full-time federal employees with an estimated $4.5 million annual budget. Moreover, the facility would feature a garden, a sports field and an outdoor area for spiritual ceremonies.
However, Reece is skeptical of the third party that would have to get invovled in a land swap — the General Services Administration, also a federal agency, one that owns the university’s land grant. Administrations officials have been “very rude,” she said.
“We have not had a good relationship with them, because they’ve ignored our concerns,” Reece said. “When we have called, they’ve been rude, irritated and abrupt.
“We have some serious questions in regard to our relationship,” she continued. “Until those issues are ironed out, it’s going to be strained at best.”
The relationship is strained, echoed Gene Gibson, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, because the university is not meeting its legal obligation to use the land for education. The federal government owns the 317-acre parcel in question, but deeded it to D-Q U as long as it uses the land to teach.
However, the university’s Board of Trustees instead is using it as “a moneymaking operation” by leasing it out to a farmer and reaping a share of the agricultural revenues, Gibson said.
In contrast to Reece’s depiction, Gibson said the administration has been “very patient” with the university, even though D-Q U failed to meet the education requirement for nearly 20 years. Nevertheless, the administration sends a letter every year telling trustees they are not in compliance.
“That’s really what this dance is,” Gibson said.
And it doesn’t have to be that way, she added.
“We would love to see D-Q University use the land,” Gibson continued. “We have no reason to want to take the land back. There’s no true benefit to (the Government Services Administration) to taking it back.”
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=22056
Posted by Jonathan Edwards
on Mar 17 2011.
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