East Feliciana residents opposed to a proposed mental health facility in Clinton are waiting to see if the parish’s police jury will give its approval.

Meanwhile, Harmony Behavioral Health Center has filed a lawsuit to move the process forward.

The 118-bed facility would house what the Louisiana Department of Health has called “patients with severe mental illness who have aggressive/difficult behavioral issues.”

The facility would take over the former Grace Nursing Home on Grace Lane. Members of the police jury told opponents at a March 6 meeting that they are also opposed to the plans.

Last year, state health officials issued a request for information from private treatment providers to house between 50 and 118 severely and persistently mentally ill adults who were civilly committed — the legal process for placing a person in a mental hospital, even against their will. The proposal does not call for housing criminally convicted patients. The department partnered with Harmony Health to convert a nursing home on Sumrall Drive in Baton Rouge, but scrapped plans after community outcry.

Harmony Health then purchased the East Feliciana nursing home from Grace-Clinton Properties LLC for $1.6 million. Collis Temple III represented the buyer.

At a planning and zoning committee meeting on March 28 about 100 residents gathered to register concerns over safety and zoning issues.

“I don’t want to look over my shoulder in my own backyard,” said Matthew Richards, who lives about 20 yards from the proposed facility. “No peace of mind. That’s no longer a home.”

“I live right next door to the facility. When they escape they’ll run into my property,” said Amy Holladay. “I’m a 60-year-old woman. My husband works in Georgia and comes home for two days. We don’t even own a gun. I have no means of defense, none.”

“I’m very concerned about the impact on public safety,” said East Feliciana Parish Sheriff Jeff Travis.“It’s going to be a big problem with the level of staff I have. Not just escapes, but what’s going on inside. I can’t afford to hire more people.”

Residents say the facility is not planning to implement strong enough security measures, and point to a letter Harmony Health’s law firm sent to 20th Judicial District Attorney Samuel D’Aquila stating the facility would have “security equivalent to the security provided in nursing homes affording long term care for Alzheimer’s patients and patients with other debilitating dementia conditions,” including 24-hour guards and anti-climb perimeter fencing.

“There is no requirement for razor wire, barbed wire or other enclosure materials that tend to provide the appearance of a penal facility,” the letter says.

At the March 28 meeting the opponents said they’re not against a mental health facility in general, but don’t understand why it has to be on Grace Lane.

“There’s plenty of state land they could put it on,” said Sheriff Travis.

Jimmie Sanders, a 77-year-old lifelong Clinton resident, said Collis Temple Jr. should put the facility on his own property.

“You wouldn’t want it in your neighborhood, so don’t try to throw that on us,” Sanders said.

The Grace Nursing Home was built before the parish adopted zoning, and the property is currently zoned as agricultural, because that’s what everything was automatically dubbed once the city instated zoning in 2008.

Some say the property should be zoned to require fences and 24-7 security. However, the police jury requires such zoned sites to be accessible by an arterial street, which Grace Lane is not.

Holladay and others also voiced concerns that the patients would be in danger in the event of a fire.

“One wing of the hospital is 25 feet from the road,” Holladay said. “It’s a very close, narrow, curvy dead-end street. If there’s a fire in the facility patients are going to burn.”

The planning and zoning committee said if the police jury decides to approve the facility, Harmony Health will have to submit plans to be rezoned.

State Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, said he has asked the state if there are rules about how close a facility like this can be to a school, and was told there are no such rules. He said he plans to work on regulations next year.

For now, he said, the power is with local government.

“If the police jury does not accept it, then it won’t go there,” Kleinpeter said.

Harmony Behavioral Health, in its lawsuit against the East Feliciana Parish Police Jury and Building Official Jeff Williams, accuses the parish of improperly denying construction permits.

Harmony Health entered an agreement with the Louisiana Department of Health to provide 118 beds starting June 1, in order for the state to move patients from an overcrowded Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System facility in Jackson.

Because of the deadline, Harmony Health asks in the lawsuit that the policy jury immediately issue a construction permit for renovations. A hearing is scheduled for early April.