OLDTOWN — Residents concerned about security at Three Springs New Dominion Maryland have scheduled a meeting Tuesday with campus officials, local law enforcement and elected officials to address concerns about escapes and damage to neighboring properties.

The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Oldtown Volunteer Fire Company’s Community Center. The meeting follows a series of discussions between nearby neighbors in January and February that detail the difficulties area homeowners are having with youth who allegedly have escaped the facility.

Three Springs, formerly called New Dominion School, is located on a 330-acre campus on Wagner Cutoff Road. The outdoor therapeutic program serves boys ages 11 to 18 who experience emotional, behavior or learning issues.

Oldtown resident Bob Malamis doesn’t have a problem with the facility or its purpose. But juveniles who have escaped from the facility have allegedly caused mischief or criminal acts in the area. The boys placed at Three Springs are done so by court order.

Residents will suggest on Tuesday a number of measures they feel would help control the clients at Three Springs. Those steps include adding sufficient staff to watch the camp at night, fencing in the sleeping areas “for those having a propensity to escape” and, during low staffing periods, require the youths to wear an electronic ankle bracelet containing a transmitter that would activate an alarm if they leave campus.

Malamis recently told the Times-News the facility already has employed additional night watchmen. A Jan. 13 meeting at Malamis’ house, which 17 area residents attended, brought to the forefront “a general concern for their safety and in fact the safety of the youth who they may come in contact with.”

Residents reported homes and vehicles being broken into, items stolen and an assault of at least one homeowner who happened to answer the door.

Craig Hartsock said there have been eight incidents on his property alone where boys from the school, or graduates of the program, “trespassed on, vandalized and/or stole property ... including guns.”

Hartsock, whose home is about 450 yards from the south of the school, wrote a letter to Delegate Kevin Kelly in July 2007 “as a last resort.” He explained he was not seeking monetary reimbursement “but answers as a concerned citizen.”

“We seem to be one of the first stops for any runaway from this school,” Hartsock wrote. “New Dominion is a home for young men with social problems and evidently criminal backgrounds. The school has no security restraints for any of these young men who seem to have a need for destruction.”

The first incident Hartsock recalled occurred on Christmas Eve in 1987 when his home was “destroyed.”

In 2003, an escapee was found under the deck of the house “only after my wife exited our home, pistol in hand, asking for identification and explanation” of 10 to 15 people in the yard searching for the boy. Hartsock said nearly $800 worth of goods were stolen in 2004.

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.