Wells River
When a break-in does occur, as one did Wednesday evening, Sawyer must wait for state police to respond because Wells River, a village of about 350 in the town of Newbury, doesn’t have its own police department. After the most recent break-in, she waited 20 to 30 minutes before a trooper arrived at the Spear House Apartments, an affordable housing complex for the elderly where she lives.
Sawyer is hardly alone among those who feel besieged in Wells River.
Green Mountain Monogram, a screen printing and embroidery company, and Burnham Shoe Store, a family-owed business since 1945, suffered break-ins this summer. And Wells River Chevrolet has been dealing with thefts and vandalism on a regular basis, manager John Gilmour said. He has had everything from tailgates to car emblems stolen, and he comes to work frequently to find gas siphoned out of vehicles.
The crime wave, village residents believe, is fueled by people who need money to buy illegal drugs, specifically opiates. The arrival of the opiate epidemic to a village that might strike outsiders as a serene community where time stopped decades ago has brought not only fear but tragedy.
Drugs are the suspected cause of two recent deaths of young people who lived or were closely connected to the village, which sits on the Connecticut River.
“This is a new epidemic really to hit the smaller towns,” said Vermont State Police Lt. Matthew Amadon, who confirmed that the opioid epidemic has made its way to Wells River. “It is difficult for a small community to handle it because they are so close-knit.”
Residents of the village are now trying to figure out what to do. A forum held on Thursday drew more than 100 area residents.
“It is frustrating. You come to work and you do your job …” Gilmour said trailing off. “It’s a pain, and it’s discouraging.”
While he hopes that Wells River will figure out how to free itself from the scourge, he doesn’t know how long that might take. In the meantime, his dealership is ready to undertake a remodeling.
But instead of renovating the current building on Railroad Street, Gilmour said, he’s considered pulling out of Wells River altogether.
It wasn’t always this way.
Residents used to keep their doors unlocked. After all, everybody knew everybody in the village. There were friendly passing hellos and an overall sense of safety.
“This was a place where you used to be able to leave your keys in your car, and you never locked your house,” said June Griswold, a village trustee who owns Placey Associates, a real estate company. “It was a very safe community.”
Villagers’ children and grandchildren rode up and down the streets by themselves, would get off the bus and walk home without a guardian and would play in their backyards without being watched closely by a loved one.
Mary Schilke, the owner of Catamount Quilt Studio in Wells River and the wife of village trustee Bill Schilke, said times have changed — which some started to notice as recently as five years ago.
“I have three grandsons, and I don’t let them walk from the bus by themselves,” she said. “I won’t give anyone the opportunity to offer them anything.”
The Schilkes aren’t taking any chances.
They now have two guard dogs and have outfitted their Victorian home with a wireless camera system.
They walk their dogs in the morning and night. At times, they say, they see hypodermic needles on the streets. When they do, they mark where the needles are and a trooper comes and collects them.
They also say they see suspicious meet-ups in the community. Wells River has dozens of apartments among its small inventory of housing, and village residents say they know the apartments and apartment houses where drug activity is going on.
While the drug problem in Wells River appears acute, many village residents say it isn’t any worse than what other places are experiencing.
Amadon, the state trooper, shares that opinion. Even so, it can be seen differently. And in tiny Wells River, the problem can feel overwhelming.
The recent community response certainly has been visible. Hot-pink signs adorned just about every storefront last week. Three words, all in capital letters, grabbed onlookers’ attention: “DRUGS ARE HERE!”
The signs were a way of informing residents about a forum, held Thursday, to address concerns, answer questions and brainstorm ideas about what residents can do to take back their village.
The large audience included town officials, health care professionals, teachers, law enforcement representatives and even former addicts.
Among them was Ashley Keith, a young mother who held a smiling baby throughout the meeting.
About a year and a half ago, Keith, who referred to herself as an addict in recovery, hit rock bottom.
“I stole. I lied. I cheated. I manipulated,” Keith, a Newbury resident, told the group. “That’s not the person I am.”
That’s the problem with drugs, they change you, she said, and they make you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do.
She said she had trouble getting into inpatient treatment, but once she did, she started to turn her life around. She has since started a Narcotics Anonymous group that holds weekly meetings in Woodsville, across the river in New Hampshire.
“You don’t know what it’s like until you have been through it,” Keith said. “There needs to be more encouragement to get help.”
Her remarks were met with applause.
Larry Hart Sr. said his daughter, Tasha, was doing everything right.
The vibrant 28-year-old mother of two was battling addiction but was enrolled in a local treatment program that uses medication and other forms of care to treat substance abuse disorders.
The Wells River resident had attended Blue Mountain Union School, where she played softball. Her father said recently that she was trying to manage the addiction she had struggled with for many years.
“There was no getting out. She was trying to live with it,” Hart Sr. said. “From what I understand … she was doing very well for herself for the last 10 months … then made one bad decision.”
Hart died unexpectedly on Nov. 2. Authorities are awaiting toxicology test results.
She was eight months pregnant.
“We lost an extremely kind-hearted individual that would have done anything for anybody,” Hart said. “The loss is amazing. It is devastating to lose your little girl.”
Tasha Hart was the second person with Wells River ties to die this year after struggling with addiction.
Marcus Smith, a graduate of Woodsville High School whose father is a Wells River resident, lost his battle in July.
A relative, Tari Labrecque, told WCAX in August that the 34-year-old Smith overdosed just three hours after he left rehab. She has since undertaken a campaign to improve options for recovering addicts who have completed rehabilitation.
Attempts to reach Labrecque last week were unsuccessful.
Tasha Hart’s father is now on a mission to educate others. The Randolph resident is urging those who have a family member or friend who is dealing with addiction to learn about opioids and the effects they have on the human body.
They are different from other addictive substances, such as tobacco and alcohol.
“I was always in denial that my little girl could get out of this at any time she wanted to,” Hart said.
He learned too late that wasn’t the case, he said.
Education about drugs and addiction must start at an early age, he said, and young people must be taught to lead and not to follow.
He plans to collaborate with a local sheriff to take a stand.
“If I can save one person,” Hart said, “that is what I want to do.”
Put on by the Wells River Action Program, Thursday evening’s 90-minute forum grappled with those issues.
Although it started as a question-and-answer session and included some finger-pointing, it evolved into a wide-ranging discussion about what residents can and should do to move their village forward.
A hot topic included increasing the presence of law enforcement in the village beyond its reliance on the Vermont State Police.
Jody Engle, the town clerk, said the village contracts with state police for heightened patrols from May to October. Other than that, troopers patrol at their will.
Vermont State Police Trooper Chuck Schulze said one trooper covers a roughly six-town area. The troopers have their own zones, but they adjust as calls come in, he said. Several troopers are on duty at any given time.
Troopers try to be as visible as possible in all the communities they serve, he said, and they try to take action when they can.
“We have heard of drug dealing. We know this stuff is going on,” he told those at the meeting. “But this isn’t a state where if I see you walking down the road I can say, ‘Let me see your backpack,’ or come right into your building. You just can’t do that. You have to have probable cause.”
He urged residents to take down license plate numbers and other identifying information and report that information to police if they see something suspicious.
Fay Homan, a family-medicine physician at Little Rivers Health Care in Wells River and one of several health care officials at the forum, urged residents to get unused prescription drugs out of their homes. Often, she said, those are a teen’s “gateway” drugs.
Stephen Genereaux, also a family-medicine physician at Little Rivers, fielded questions about the substance abuse services offered by the health center, including the Medication-Assisted Treatment program, which started this summer and now has between five and 10 people enrolled. Among other intensive treatments, program participants are prescribed Suboxone, a brand-name combination of buprenorphine and naloxone. The medication “takes away some of the cravings,” Genereaux said, with the long-term goal of weaning patients off of it. The Wells River clinic does not prescribe methadone, another drug used to help manage addiction.
Little River’s program has had a high success rate so far, Genereaux said.
At the end of the meeting, residents decided to schedule another forum for next month. They plan to break into groups to more closely examine three aspects of the issue — law enforcement, treatment opportunities and prevention.
“There is no immediate solution,” moderator Rick Hausman said.
Meanwhile, Wells River residents will continue to move about their village with caution, keeping a close eye on what’s going on.
Sawyer will still sleep with her lights on. Her video camera will still be rolling.
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.