Treatment center security plan no comfort for Campton Hills residents

Ongoing questions about security for a drug and alcohol treatment facility proposed near Campton Hills will force further public debate on the project in January.

Testimony from a security expert during a Kane County zoning board of appeals meeting Tuesday night did little to comfort Campton Hills residents opposed to the plan.

Deric Wahlgren of Aurora-based Alarm Detection Systems, a company hoping to win the bid for the security system at the treatment facility, spent a majority of the evening discussing the high-priced camera system proposed for the property. The company is well-known to county officials: It provides the security systems for both the county and forest preserve district, and one of the company's salespeople is married to a county board member.

How those connections will affect the zoning board's decision isn't known, but Campton Hills residents weren't impressed.

Wahlgren testified the camera system he proposes will include both recording and thermal imaging. But because all the patients at the facility will be there voluntarily, there will be no fence or other physical deterrents to keep clients from entering or exiting the property.

Attorneys for Maxxam Partners, the company behind the treatment facility, said each client will sign a contract agreeing only to enter and exit the premises under certain conditions, including using a shuttle and leaving through the key card-controlled front gate. Anyone trespassing either onto the property or off the site to nearby private property could be prosecuted.

"It's not a correctional facility," Wahlgren said. "People can come and go as they please."

Wahlgren also likened the proposed security system to what's used to track illegal entry to the United States on its various borders.

For nearby residents, that aroused audible groans and fears about things such as people using Mylar blankets to defeat the thermal imaging and drug dealers approaching the property through the 620 acres of forest preserve surrounding much of the site.

"The woods are owned by the public," said county board member Barb Wojnicki. "I would like to make sure our residents using this 620 acres are safe at all times,"

Former Kane County Chief Judge F. Keith Brown is representing Maxxam during the zoning process. He said the company will provide detailed information about the security ultimately adopted for the facility as a requirement for approval.

"People are concerned," Brown said. "People have fears. We are here to answer those. After a few months of operation, basically, no one is even going to know it's there."

Whether or not the zoning board agrees will be decided at a later date. The ongoing questions will force at least one more continuation of the public hearing to Jan. 19. The full county board must also vote on the project.