5,000 inmate prison within Prescott Valley! Mayor Skoog and the PV Town Council Thursday, January 14th, 5:30 p.m. At the Town Civic Center 7501 E. Civic Circle, Prescott Valley, Arizona 86314 | 928-759-3000. The Prison would be located off of Fain road between highway 69 and 89A. It would be within 5 miles of over 10 public schools!
Your help is needed to STOP this PRISON!! See below for some talking points.
The Problem:
The problem is that there are very few studies in the impact of private prisons and or public prisons available, thus our elected officials can seem to do back door deals with land owners. There are not that many statistics for the voters to use in an argument with elected officials. I have provided some information to use in you argument. Prison Town Pdf is a book / visual version of how a Prison is lobbied for, Financed by the Taxpayer, Built, Staffed, Populated, Concessions to the Land Owner and prison Operator with all of the intended and unintended consequences listed. READ IT !
In most smaller communities around the United States the building of a prison is heralded as a job creator and economic engine. This statement is mostly fiction. Do some research in communities in California that have built prisons over the last 25 years and take note of the results, they are staggering in the negative impact to the surrounding community. I have included several attachments to support the case for no Prisons as well as some talking points below. Prisons often result in a Bond or Property Tax assessments that actually impacts the local population negatively and benefits redevelopment agencies and the owner of the Private Prison Complex. If they were such a good deal, why is all the lobbying money and promises of concessions from the municipality needed?
Some Examples follow:
The 750 jobs that a prison opened in 1999 brought to the tiny rural town of Malone, New York went mostly to people from outside the town because of prison system rules. According to the village's director of the Office of Community Development, "Did we get seven hundred fifty jobs? We didn't get a hundred"(Sheryl McCarthy, "Malone Got a Lock on Prisons, then...," Albany Times Union, April 15, 2000.)
According to Thomas Johnson, an economist and professor of public affairs at the University of Missouri, prisons are not very good economic development strategies because they generate few linkages to the economy, failing to attract significant numbers of associated industries, as an auto plant might spark the development of delivery companies, radio assemblers and electronic harness makers. (Douglas Clement, "Big House On The Prairie," Fedgazette, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Vol. 14, No. 1, January, 2002 )
Facts: -
A) According to the National Institute of Corrections - The vast majority of Prison Guards live 15 to 30 Miles outside of the community that houses the prison -- Ever wonder why? They do not want their Families to be located near a Prison! THIS IS IN ALL STATES! They do not spend their wages in the local community.
B) Not a Job Creator: According to Ruth Gilmore, a professor at UC-Berkeley, Gilmore's study of prison towns in California shows that less than 20% of jobs on average go to current residents of a town with a new prison. While over time that percentage increases, it is below 40% for all of California's new rural prison towns. (Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag, University of California Press,2002.) The findings of Gilmore's study in California are echoed in reports from disappointed local officials in prison towns across the country.
C) Qualified Immunity : In Richardson v. McKnight, No. 96-318 Slip Op. (June 27, 1997) the United States Supreme Court declined to apply the doctrine of qualified immunity to private prison guards who are not governmental employees. The doctrine of qualified immunity is essential in protecting employees of a correctional facility from unjustified inmate lawsuits. Absent these protection’s, guards and the citizens of jurisdictions in which the Private Prisons are domiciled, will be at the mercy of a litigious inmate population. The costs of defending against such actions will be borne by the private guard and surrounding community and costs can be astronomical. Since private prison guards do not have the same police powers that state or federal correctional officers do, many disciplinary infractions in private prisons are handled by district or county courts. In Bent County, Colorado, filings in the county court increased an astonishing 99% after the opening of the privately-operated Bent County Correctional Facility in Las Animas.
D) Visit the National Institute of Corrections Website for information and archives. - http://www.nicic.org/Library/022956
Information to Use:
1) In the real world, guards are brought in from outside the community, very little local hiring results in PV.
2) Attracting businesses and new residents that have no connection to the Prison to the area is heavily impacted, new comers do not want to be located near a penal facility. In Tehachapi, California, home to two state prisons, 741 locally-owned businesses failed in the last decade of the 1990s, while box-store chains absorbed the local markets. As a result, there may be no net increase in tax revenues, and, because profits made by chain stores are not locally reinvested in the way that locally-owned profits may be, the circulation of dollars within a community drop in absolute terms.
3) Real Estate prices are effected in a negative way through out the community, not just around a Prison. Anticipating that prisons will both attract new people to live in the host community and that locals with prison jobs will be able to afford better housing, developers build new housing. But because today's prison employees often choose not to live in small rural towns, opting instead to commute from urban and suburban areas, speculation in housing development can end in disaster both for the speculator and for the town, as happened in the prison towns of Corcoran and Avenal, California.
The impact of prisons on housing can also cause economic hardships for the poor and elderly in rural communities. Both land and rental values generally increase when a prison sighting is authorized by a governmental or corporate entity; however, land values fall once the actual (low) number of locally-gained jobs, and associated homeowners, becomes clear. This has the effect of placing additional burdens on poorer members of the community, particularly renters and elderly homeowners, since rents generally rise when real property prices rise, but landlords rarely reduce rents during economic downturns. As a result renters, who are often the poorest members of communities, are made even poorer because their fixed costs increase while income does not change. This happened in Crescent City, California, when a state prison opened in 1989. For elderly homeowners, the rise and fall in prices during the period of speculative development ultimately devalued their homes.(Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag, University of California Press,2002.)
4) Turnover rates of employees in Private prisons are 53% versus 16% in public facilities. Private guards are not trained or paid as well as Public facility guards.
5) Prison Escapees: According to the California Dept of Corrections (1995-2000) Escapees numbered as follows: Public Prisons Population escapees ratio was 1: 14,601. Private Population escapees ratio was 1: 614. During this period there were 11 escapees from public facilities vs 201 from Private facilities.
6) According to the National Institute of Corrections violence in Private Prisons is 66% higher than Public Prisons. This adds an additional burden to local law enforcement.
7) Inmate Populations are included in the census counts and are listed as no income - this fact artificially lowers the average median income of a community. businesses will not relocate to a community that has below average median incomes.Businesses looking to expand or relocate to communities look at the MEDIAN incomes of communities for a return on their investment. Too low a medial income takes a community out of the running for expansion, thus costing the community jobs.
Having a lower than average median income mandates more Federal and State financial assistance and services. Statistically the community will start to attract more welfare recipients that have nothing to offer a community other than consume services that are largely unfunded federal and State mandated benefits and services that are them paid for by the county and the surrounding communities.
Lower than median average income puts pressure on all of our local services from Law Enforcement to Children's Services and builds a community that is dependent on government funding programs that are subject to the whims of politicians at all levels. These facilities will move to the next community that offers them a better deal once the concessions made have run out and they have to start paying their way.The tendency of states -- including Texas, Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, Florida, and California among many others -- to "cluster" prisons in distinct rural regions has created dozens of rural penal colonies where prisons dominate the community's economic, social, political, and cultural landscape with myriad and profound effects. (Francis X. Donnelly, "Ionia finds stability in prisons," The Detroit News, 2001. )
8) There is an influx of families, friends and or related parties to the inmates into the community, some part time some full time. these people for the most part are of questionable character, do not have regular jobs and access public services for food, housing etc. In short they are a net economic drain on the local communities.
9) Minor crime and misdemeanors increase dramatically in affected communities.
10) Prisons have a net negative impact on sewer and water services. We already have a water problem.
You have a number of schools in the near vicinity....what are you thinking?
5,000
in
Prescott Valley?
Mayor Harvey Skoog 533-7064
Vice Mayor Laura Nye 533-5129
Council Member H.Wise 533-5448
Council Member Lasker 420-4373
Council Member M. Flannery 772-7451
Council Member G. Anderson 775-4644
Council Member F. Schumacher 533-4785
Tim’s Toyota Center (TTC) is a $25 million multipurpose facility,
seating approximately 5,100 for hockey, soccer and football and up to 6,200 for concerts. The facility can also host boxing, basketball, rodeo, ice shows, and theatrical productions. Tim’s Toyota Center has 2,365 parking spaces, 397 club seats, 22 private luxury suites, and two party suites. It was designed and built to meet all ADA specifications to
accommodate our guests with disabilities.
The "Prison" they are planning has 5000 beds......Have you ever been inside Tim's Toyota Center When it was full of people?
ATTENTION The prison issue is back! A telephone survey paid for by somebody wanting to put a prison complex on Fain Road is underway. It appears they are seeking to find out the "best" way to sell it to the people in Prescott Valley; again! Restart calling Mayor Skoog and the council members. Get them to pass a resolution that would stop their approval process.
Please "review" the videos of Bill Fain and Ron Fain on this site as a reminder of where the Fain Family stands on this issue. They are for "themselves" and the money involved in selling hundreds of acres for Millions! Check back here often and sign up to help!
Tom Steele Coordinator, The NO Prison in PV Committee
This should be a reminder of some of the reasons we NEVER want a prison complex
in Prescott Valley. Remember, the forces that brought a prison proposal to PV
came from politically connected forces. One from Andy Tobin our state rep district one,
and the second from the PVEDF and Gary Marks as well as the all powerful Fain Family.
I think we need to replace a few PV council members to assure this will not come to us again!