NARROWSBURG, NY — “There is no justification for variances on established town use laws and its legally adopted 2007 Comprehensive Plan and 2013 Narrowsburg Master Plan to accommodate [a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center] at the Narrowsburg school building when it could be situated elsewhere in the town.”

That sentence was in the opening paragraph of a report prepared for the group Narrowsburg Organization for Responsible School Usage (NORSU) by Alan Sorensen. Sorensen’s opinion carries more weight than most because he is a Sullivan County Legislator, a professional planner and a former county planning commissioner.

Sorensen was hired by NORSU to create the report in the wake of the decision by the Sullivan West Central School Board to sell the Narrowsburg School to Joan Buto, who intends to use it for a drug and alcohol rehab center.

In the past, Superintendent Dr. Nancy Hacket said the board had been focused on getting the best deal for the taxpayers, but Sorensen took the board to task for not performing adequate long-term analysis.

He writes, “The Sullivan West Board of Education should have carefully weighed the short-term financial benefit to the School District against the short and long-term detriment to the community by accepting a bid for $751,000” for the proposed rehab.

He argues that the competing bid for $742,000 “Would have had little fiscal impact on the school district and would have transformed the school into an arts, education and fitness center, which would have been consistent with the town’s land-use policies and laws, and greatly benefit the community’s long-term effort and determined efforts (as codified in its land-use laws and plans) to create a vibrant economy, centered on tourism, natural resources of the Delaware River, historic preservation and the arts.”

The sale is now the subject of litigation and members of the school board are not commenting on the matter.