Is "maybe" really news?
A piece in the QC Times today reports that the Thomson prison may open. This of course, would be big news, if it seemed apparent that the prison will indeed open.
The reporter bases the story on another reporter's question about the opening to Gov. Blagojevich at the press conference in Moline today to announce his award of $2.4 million for preliminary studies and planning for the WIU Moline riverfront campus project.
The governor refused to say whether the prison would open, or even what, if anything, is being discussed, saying, "Keep hope alive, keep hope alive and we'll have something to say about this sometime between Groundhog Day and Valentine's Day, give or take a day or two, and I think they'll like what we have to say."
Not a lot to go on.
It's a shame that this area has nothing better to offer than working at hog slaughtering plants, catching monster carp, or helping to imprison ever more of the population for non-violent crimes. With prisons being a growth industry, how long will it take before half the population is paying to keep the other half in jail?
But apparently the "Field of Dreams" dictum doesn't apply in this instance. If you build it, they won't necessarily come.
So there the huge Thomson prison sits, as empty as Dick Cheney's soul.
I mean, is this what passes for progress? It used to be that before an enormous building was left rotting and unoccupied it was at least in business for a few decades. Apparently in the name of efficiency Thomson decided to build their own, bigger, better abandoned facility. (Which seems a bit excessive considering the glut of rotting abandoned properties all over the mid-west.)
It's come to this? Now we skip the decades of productive use and just build pre-abandoned facilities? Talk about cutting to the chase. That's like the guy who said the next time he had the urge to get married he'd save time and just find a woman he doesn't really care for and buy her a house.
Though Sen. Jacobs said he's "very optimistic" that the prison will indeed open "in some form" in 2007, I say we wait until we see it to believe it.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 1/11/2006
5 comments
5 Comments:
re-open the thomson prison? when was the original opening?
I see your point.. I guess that's the wrong term.
I guess I was counting when construction was completed as it's being "opened". But you're right... I'll fix that.
Gret job Sen. Mike Jacobs wit your initiative and fight "maybe" you won't have to use that big size twelve afterall.
Thomson didn't decide to build a vacant prison. The State decided a new prison was needed to relieve overcrowding at existing facilities and put out the word, asking for communities to enter a competitive process for the new prison site. Since Carroll County had lost hundreds of good-paying jobs when the Savanna Depot was closed in a previous BRAC round of base closings, the County's high unemployment rate made it an obvious choice. Originally, the prison was to be located on the former depot site, but environmentalists, concerned about the welfare of two "endangered" plants, James Clammy Weed and Silver Sedge, nixed the depot as a site for the prison. Alliant Energy volunteered to sell the State the site near Thomson and the City agreed to updgrade its utilites to serve the site. Now Thomson is stuck paying off the bonds that were sold to finance waster and sewer extensions without the promised revenue from the prison's water and sewer use. So far, the State has stepped up and made the annual bond payments, but the State is not obligated to do so. This small village of 500 people got sold a bill of goods by the State, and in the meantime, Illinois still operates antiquated and overcrowded prison facilities. I agree that prisons and hog slaughtering faciliites are not the type of economic development any of us would choose, but unfortunately, we do not have a labor force with the required skills to attract high tech industries. The planned expansion of WIU is a great start. More money for training through the state's "critical skills" initiative is vital, but we also need workers to understand that even mediocre jobs require a high school diploma and good-paying jobs require education beyond high school. The days of snagging a great paying job at the local factory at the age of 18 are gone.
You should cross-post this at Illinoize.
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