NORWICH – Those charged with keeping Chenango County abreast of developments and possible safety concerns at Valley Ridge Center for Intensive Treatment met with their counterparts from Broome County Tuesday at a joint meeting with the Developmental Disabilities Services Office’s Board of Visitors.

The two groups merged this fall following consolidation of Valley Ridge into Broome’s DDSO last April. Both are units of the New York State Department of Health’s Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.

DDSO Director Carl Letson said the Valley Ridge Board of Visitors would continue to monitor the Norwich-based facility periodically as mandated by the DOH, but some of those meetings would include the DDSO Board via teleconferencing. The combined boards will also now have enough members to meet state requirements, a relief to the Valley Ridge board as its members have had a difficult time filling the board’s roster in the past.

In addition, Letson said there had been a “tonal” change in the way DDSO and CIT administrators are interacting with each other since the consolidation was first announced. According to a November article in “The Communicator,” Valley Ridge employees had felt the DDSO was making a “hostile take-over” of the standards and practices at the CIT. The consolidation resulted in three employees being redeployed to Broome.