A major presence in Ulster County addiction recovery, the Samadhi Center, under official fire since February, last week survived yet another attempt to terminate or alter its county contract.

It was at Thursday's meeting of the County Legislature's Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee that legislators Kevin Roberts (R-Plattekill) and Joe Maloney (D-Saugerties) introduced Resolution 263, which would have deep-sixed Samadhi's April 2023 contract awarding the center $797,000 of national opioid settlement money for outpatient treatment and emergency housing.

The resolution was Roberts's and Maloney's latest attack on the center, a crusade that began with an early February joint press release citing Samadhi's Saugerties facility as a magnet for “an alarming surge in complaints from constituents, elected officials, town representatives, and law enforcement.”

Samadhi suffered another blow later that month when County Comptroller March Gallagher announced that she had suspended payments to the center over bookkeeping irregularities involving the center's disbursement of funds.

The center's optics weren't helped when first, it emerged that outreach director Aron Chapyak's December death resulted from a drug overdose, and then in March, Saugerties Police Chief Robert Nuzzo told the Daily Freeman that the frequency of calls to the center's emergency housing (37 incidents in 2023) was “taxing on emergency services.”

Yet in May, a Roberts and Maloney resolution that would have had the county solicit treatment providers other than Samadhi was proposed and voted down 11-9. And as Thursday's vote confirms, 4-2, Samadhi still has a strong cadre of legislators on its side.

Roberts, soldiering on despite his measure's defeat last Thursday, told the Kingston Wire he plans to use a discharge petition to bring it to the full Legislature for vote June 18, taking up the cudgel chiefly over the center's alleged mishandling of money. “I never claimed to have first-hand knowledge of police activity or disorder at Samadhi,” he wrote via email. “All my criticism of Samadhi has been financial."

Ulster Legislature Majority Leader Abe Uchitelle (D-Kingston), who chairs the HHS Committee, offered a strong defense of the center.

“Working with the population that Samadhi serves is very challenging, and ensuring public safety is critical for making all of this work, both for that population and the community they call home,” he wrote via email.

He continued, “We have seen a series of resolutions attacking this organization this year, each of them defeated despite a promise from the sponsors that new information would be shared showing further issues. So far, we have received no new information, no new whistle-blowers, and no evidence that would justify making harm reduction resources unavailable to those in need. The financial issues at Samadhi are certainly a concern and I am grateful that the Comptroller continues to work with them in finding a resolution.”

Roberts and Maloney both insist they are fully supportive of substance abuse treatment generally and deny that their concerns are mere NIMBYism. “We're at a bypass here as of right now,” Roberts told the HHS Committee. “There's nothing we could do to pay them, or they could do to get paid, according to the Comptroller. So, we're at a bypass. What direction do we go? Are we going to wait for them to get their financial house in order, which may never happen, or are we going to move on and get this money out in the street and help kids that need it and adults that really could use it.”

Maloney, amplifying Saugerties Police Chief Nuzzo's account, gave Kingston Wire an earful about whistleblowers who have approached him and, as he tells it, local media's failure to investigate. He and the Kingston Wire are planning a sit-down in the not-too-distant future to talk about it.

March Gallagher, via email, told the Kingston Wire that Samadhi's financial reporting was still unresolved.

“Samadhi has presented us with several new financial policies,” she wrote. “On April 17th we requested the documentation of the [Samadhi] Board meeting from the adoption of those policies, and we have yet to receive that. Once we receive that we are likely to make additional inquiries and requests that will be necessary before the Comptroller’s Office can provide approval of any payments, contracts, or contract amendments.”

Samadhi executive director, David McNamara, questions his critics' allegations. “We have not received any complaints from neighbors and have not been provided any complaints by neighbors,” he wrote via email. “We want to be the best neighbors we can and I will set up a meeting with the town board and police chief Nuzzo to see how we can do that.”

Regarding Samadhi's housing of clients, he wrote, “The housing component is not addiction treatment but outreach. There have been certain public officials who call it a rehab or treatment center and it is not. It is safe emergency housing. We have peers with lived experience of addiction who support and show compassion to those coming off the street. People do not seek treatment or recovery when they are still living homeless on the street.”

Notably, while county funding has been on hold while the dispute bubbles, Samadhi has continued to service its troubled clientele.