Town, State Officials Meet About Pleasantville Cottage School

MOUNT PLEASANT, NY — Mount Pleasant Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi and Police Chief Paul Oliva met with state officials Thursday to discuss conditions at a residential treatment center for children operated by the JCCA.

Town officials repeated their recent demand that the state close the JCCA Westchester campus, long known as the Pleasantville Cottage School, because the residential treatment center has failed to address conditions they consider dangerous and because it costs the town money to respond to emergency calls.

During the first six months of 2023, the Mount Pleasant police and emergency services responded to 459 calls at the campus for incidents including missing persons, assaults, violent altercations and vandalism, town officials said. In 2022, the Mount Pleasant Police/emergency services responded to over 760 calls. Based on the first six months, this year’s call volume will exceed 1,000, a record, officials predicted.

“We had a very productive meeting, and I restated my position that this facility must close,” said Fulgenzi. “The JCCA does not have the necessary staff to cope with residents with severe behavioral issues.”

The Thursday meeting included Mount Pleasant officials, state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assemblymember MaryJane Shimsky, a representative from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office and members of the New York Office of Children and Family Services.

The meeting was organized in response to Mount Pleasant’s July 12 demand for the Westchester Campus’ closure and a July 13 letter from Stewart-Cousins to state mental health and child welfare regulators.

In her letter, Stewart-Cousins said "Increasing numbers of children and teens with significant mental illness are being placed in residential treatment centers (RTC), such as JCCA’s Pleasantville Campus." She asked that the OCFS help stop the practice of sending "this specific population" to the Pleasantville Campus and that OCFS work with JCCA to immediately seek alternate care and placement arrangements for those already there.

The New York City-based child welfare and mental health service provider serves New York’s most vulnerable children. The JCCA’s Westchester Campus was founded in 1912 as the Pleasantville Cottage School, a residential treatment program at 1075 Broadway with the first cottage-style center in the country. Family courts or mental health agencies typically used to send children there who had suffered abuse or neglect.

At the end of Thursday’s meeting, state officials told Mount Pleasant that they will return for a subsequent meeting with objectives and recommendations, Fulgenzi said.

It is the state's problem that JCCA has had to deal with a few children with complex mental health issues, Chief Executive Officer Ronald E. Richter told Patch last week.

"New York State currently does not have models of care for kids in the child welfare system who are persistently violent," Richter said. "Because JCCA is committed to serving kids, we ended up with a disproportionate number of kids who are aggressive and difficult to manage in an open situation.

"Most important to us is to stabilize our campus for the children who belong here. We can actually support them," Richter told Patch. "We’re really taking care and trying to support the most vulnerable children in New York."

SEE ALSO: Child Mental Health Crisis Causing Crisis In Westchester