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Governor wants to close Pontiac
prison
5/5/2008
The Galesburg Register-Mail
Adriana Colindres
SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Rod
Blagojevich’s administration is canceling its plan to close part of the
Stateville prison near Joliet and now wants to shut down the Pontiac
Correctional Center instead.
The latest proposal from the Department of Corrections also involves the
long-awaited opening of the maximum-security portion of a state prison in
the northwestern Illinois community of Thomson. Completed about seven
years ago, most of Thomson has remained vacant because of state financial
troubles.
News of the Pontiac prison’s possible demise caught state Sen. Dan
Rutherford, R-Chenoa, off guard Monday. His Senate district includes the
prison, which is the largest employer in the Livingston County community
of about 12,000. Its closure would be devastating, he said.
"I see no objective standard they have followed to make this type of
decision," he said.
"The troubling part is the facility is in absolutely good, functioning
order. It’s not like it’s a decrepit, falling down place."
Pontiac Mayor Scott McCoy scrambled Monday to assemble an entourage of
local leaders to oppose the proposal after Rutherford notified him of the
plans earlier in the morning. He and other mayors plan to meet with
Rutherford today to formulate a combat strategy.
"I will definitely be a loud voice on this one," McCoy said. "I’ll do
anything I can to stop this."
If the Pontiac prison closes, it would represent the shuttering of the
area’s second-largest employer, with a staff of 594, and the second
catastrophe to strike this year. Record-setting floods damaged hundreds of
homes in the Pontiac area in January.
"This is a manmade disaster," McCoy said.
The Pontiac prison opened in June 1871, according to the Department of
Corrections Web site. It currently houses 1,650 inmates. Stateville opened
in 1925.
The proposed shutdown of the prison must go through a process spelled out
by the state’s "Facilities Closure Act." That process, which includes
public hearings and analysis of such factors as the economic impact of a
closure, can take months.
"Once we go through all of that, it would seem to make sense that Pontiac
should be sustained," Rutherford said.
The plan to shutter the Pontiac facility drew criticism Monday from the
union that represents about 550 employees.
"They shouldn’t be playing musical chairs with prisons," said Henry Bayer,
executive director of the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees Council 31.
In a letter sent Monday to state Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi, D-Joliet, Department
of Corrections Director Roger Walker Jr. said his goal "has been to put
newer, more modern facilities into operation and decrease the reliance on
older, less efficient ones."
Wilhelmi opposed the earlier plan to close Stateville, which is in his
Senate district.
Sergio Molina, Walker’s executive assistant, said the inmate population at
Pontiac consists largely of prisoners who are kept in one-man cells. Most
are held in segregation because of disciplinary problems or kept in
protective custody, while others have mental health problems and 15 are on
death row, he said. Closing the prison would mean transferring 1,300
inmates to Thomson while 350 medium security inmates would be sent to
other sites. Thomson has about 1,600 single maximum-security cells that
have not been used, Molina said.
"Transferring this specialized inmate population from Pontiac to the
Thomson facility will allow us to continue single-celling these inmates at
the same time that we move to a more efficient facility and away from an
older, less efficient one," Walker wrote in the letter to Wilhelmi.
Molina said that under the new Corrections proposal, the Pontiac prison
would be phased out between January and February 2009, while the Thomson
prison would open in that same time frame.
Rutherford said he is "definitely suspect" that partisanship played a part
in the proposal to close the Pontiac prison. The Department of Corrections
falls under the oversight of the governor, a Democrat.
But Wilhelmi insisted that politics wasn’t at work. He said lawmakers from
both parties opposed the earlier plan to close Stateville for many
reasons, including its proximity to Cook County, which is where most
inmates are from, and the prospect of losing jobs.
"I’m very happy that the governor chose not to close Stateville," Wilhelmi
said. "At the same time, it was never my intention to have any other
facility close."
The proposed closure of the Pontiac prison comes on the heels of the
Illinois Senate’s rejection of a proposed constitutional amendment that
would have asked voters if they wanted the power to recall elected
officials before their terms expire. Supporters and opponents of recall
generally agreed the issue surfaced because of widespread dissatisfaction
with Blagojevich’s job performance.
The Senate voted 33-19 on Thursday to put the proposal on Nov. 4 ballots,
but 36 yes votes were needed for passage. Rutherford voted yes on the
measure, while Wilhelmi was one of two senators voting "present."
Wilhelmi said Monday that his vote on the recall issue was unrelated to
the question of what would happen with Stateville.
He said he voted present because "I am not going to get caught up in the
silliness and the political gamesmanship that is at the heart of the
recall issue. It’s not about education, health care, human services,
infrastructure. It’s strictly a political issue."
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