Neighbor complaints could lead to dismantling of services for medically vulnerable
The name of the arts program last weekend at the Matheny Medical and Educational Center, which serves people with special needs, was called "Full Circle: 2015 Perspectives."
But "running in circles" would be the best way to describe the six years of legal battles that have been forced on the school by a small group of Peapack-Gladstone residents.
And now, after all the years and legal fees and political machinations, the town land-use committee is deciding on new language that would redefine the permitted use of the 81 acres Matheny has owned for 61 years. What this little group in this little town decides might leave some of the services that Matheny provides to their residents and outpatients in danger of being dismantled.
"We hope not," said Sandy Josephson, director of communications at Matheny. "We hope we can continue to operate as we have."
Matheny was started in 1946 - the year after World War II ended - by Walter and Marguerite Matheny, with a $3,000 G.I. loan. There were three students with cerebral palsy, including their son, Chuck.
The school was created out of necessity. That much hasn't changed. It was unique then, as it is now, in educating and facilitating children (and now, adults) with cerebral palsy and rare neurological and developmental disorders. Matheny treats syndromes unfamiliar to most people: Rett's, Angelman's, Cornelia De Lange, Wolf-Hirschhorn, 4Q Deletion. Any feeling person would see these medically vulnerable people and think, "There but for the grace of God go I."
By 1954, the middle of the Baby Boom years, the need had grown so much that the Mathenys purchased a few acres on a somewhat remote, breezy hill atop Peapack's Highland Avenue. The nearest neighbors were the Sisters of Saint John Baptist, ensconced in the wilting Gilded Age mansion called Blairsden, and the elderly women of the Kate Macy Ladd home, which had been deeded by Mrs. Ladd to become a first-class retirement home for ladies of modest means.
This is important because when shovels went into the ground in 1954, the Matheny School fit right into the land use of its two closest neighbors.
Ah, but how life has changed. The simplicity of good intentions has become complicated, what with layers of local, county and state laws,and approvals and certifications. Loopholes - or bear traps - depending on which side you're on.
For years, Matheny expanded and modernized into a residential hospital serving about 100 people. This is important because those people are Peapack-Gladstone residents, too - some for decades.
The most recent addition was in 2000, when the arts center opened, with studio space, galleries and a theater for its arts access program.
This is not an extravagance: It allows the creative person trapped in an uncooperative body to come out through the hands, mouths and movements of the lucky ones - those of us who take things like painting, speaking, dancing or even swallowing for granted.
Now, nonverbal poets such as Natalia Manning can get someone to bring her words out. And artists including Yasin Reddick and Michael Martin can bring their colors and splashes, and designs, to life through able-bodied hands.
In 2008, Matheny developed a plan to add 40 beds in a wing that would connect the main building to the arts center. The addition would have included a therapeutic gym and indoor pool. Gym equipment is now stacked in classrooms and the small therapeutic pool is outdoors.
The proposal gained speedy state approval. Matheny officials thought borough approval would be a foregone conclusion. Peapack-Gladstone was hugely supportive of the residential hospital, hosting the annual "Miles for Matheny" walk, the largest public gathering in town. There is a Matheny fundraising consignment shop in town and many residents - wealthy or otherwise - donate time and money.
The plan was submitted in May 2008.
What followed were 46 land use hearings over three years, lawsuits aimed at the school and ethics charges aimed at town officials who were sympathetic to the school.
It began with a small group of Highland Avenue neighbors worried about added traffic and infected - yes, that's the right word - the normally pleasant and agreeable community.
It became a lawyers' game (yes, the lead complainant is a lawyer) of demands and threats, and traffic study after traffic study.
Lost in all of this were the people whose bodies are restricted and gnarled, and whose minds are trapped by cerebral palsy and other complications so severe and unique, no two can be served by a uniformly designed wheelchair. A wheelchair shop in the basement of Matheny tailors each one to the physical capabilities of each patient.
This is important to know because the wheelchair shop, as well as medical and dental clinics, came under fire from the complaining group, which claimed they were in non-compliance with the land-use ordinance.
The irony, of course, is this: If traffic was the real concern, dissolving services would create more traffic by forcing patients to be transported off-campus for treatment.
Matheny officials felt as if they were under attack. Peapack-Gladstone land-use updates in 1979, and again in 1996, had given Matheny a zoning blessing as "a residential health care facility in conjunction with a school," but that use was being challenged.
The Matheny officials were right. The land-use board rejected Matheny's proposal, a judge upheld the decision. And now comes the subcommittee to parse the language that lets Matheny exist.
Matheny has decided to end its expansion attempt and will now try to accommodate people - the need - in group homes.
Wouldn't it be a beautiful thing if the school could place each and every one of them right next door to the people who put up a roadblock to the expansion?
Then, they might better understand the words of a poem written by Manning that are inscribed on glass at the arts center:
When you make me mad,
I love you anyway ...
I am ready ...
For our lives coming into one.