Columbia County News
Fed Bureau of Prisons listens to the public
2500 bed
illegal alien prison still uncertain
Columbia County, FL (posted July 2,
2009) Part II
to Part I
By Stew Lilker
The Bureau's Issac Gaston address the small crowd as the hearing
began. Columbia County's Good Old Boy effort to keep the meeting
under wraps paid off as only a few of the over 70,000 residents
showed up for the meeting. Those that did attend stated that
next time they would be there with their friends.
The June 30, 2009, public meeting sponsored by the US
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons (“Bureau”) ran
without a hitch. Mr. Issac Gaston from Bureau’s Site Selection
and Environmental Review Branch welcomed everyone to the meeting
and explained the site review process. Mr. Gaston said that the
Bureau welcomed everyone’s comments and encouraged folks to
participate in the Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”)
process. (See the attached pdf, “Public Scoping Meeting, for
more details and maps).
Court Reporter Beth Walker didn't miss a beat as she made the
record for the Bureau, where unlike in Columbia County, peoples
words really do count.
Mr. Gaston originally called for a three minute time limit,
which he ignored and he let folks speak as long as they wanted,
as long as they stayed on point. The Bureau encouraged
participation and Ms. Beth Walker, Court Reporter, was flown in
from Washington to make sure an accurate record was prepared for
inclusion in the draft EIS.
Based on discussion during and after the meeting the Observer
has learned the following regarding the proposed prison:
1.
According to the Bureau’s Mr. Gaston, the prison will be able to
house up to 2500 prisoners. This is 1250 more than was
originally anticipated.
2.
Neither Mike Harling of Municipal Capital Markets Group, the
financing arm of this project, nor Mike Pelletier of Community
Education Centers, the prison operator seemed to anticipate the
2500 bed size limit.
3.
The facility would now create almost 500 full time positions –
wardens, officers, office personnel, corrections officers,
medical personnel, maintenance workers, etc.
4.
The original estimate of a fourteen million dollar operations
budget will now double to twenty eight million dollars.
Mike Harling of Municipal Capital Markets Group, the money men,
addresses the room.
5.
Mr. Harling’s original estimate of ten plus million dollars in
salaries, wages and benefits will now double to twenty million
dollars.
6.
Mr. Harling’s estimates of impact fee revenue do not take into
account that due to short sighted thinking by Contractor and
Commissioner Jody DuPree and the rest of the County Commission
there is a moratorium on impact fees in the county.
7.
The construction project originally estimated to cost sixty five
million dollars should now be well over one hundred million
dollars.
Who will the prisoners be?
According to the Bureau, Mr. Harling, Mr. Pellitier, and
echoed after the meeting by consultant Bill Bryan, “The
prisoners will be minor, low level risk prisoners.”
Mr. Bryan explained to the Observer that Florida doesn’t have
a lot of Federal prison beds. He said that a lot of the
prisoners will be those “arrested coming into the country
through Miami and Atlanta airports.”
Neither the Bureau, Mr. Harling, nor anybody else explained
how, if the Feds decided to move half of Gitmo to Columbia
County’s new private Federal Prison, this could be stopped.
Two County Commissioners attended the meeting. Neither one
spoke.
Jim Poole, the Director of the Columbia County Industrial
Development Authority (“IDA”) did speak and curiously, shed no
light on the process, nor did he say if the county was in favor
of the project.
Dale Williams, Columbia County’s long time County Manager was
absent from the meeting.
The County could have planned for a
project like this, but they didn't.
Using a hundred gallons a day as a baseline for water usage
per person at the proposed prison, the math is simple. Twenty
five hundred inmates along with a supporting staff of five
hundred will use 300,000 gallons of water a day or 2,100,000
gallons a week. Nobody knows where all this water is going to go
or has spoken about where it is going to come from.
In 2006-07, the County Managers personal destruction the idea
of a regional utility for Columbia County, along with the County
Commission’s stamp of approval and double talk and their most
recent bungling of the utility project at Ellisville
demonstrates that the present leadership, the “Good Old Boys” of
Columbia County are not up to a utility project of this size.
The County has not admitted to doing or receiving any impact
studies, economic studies, traffic studies or any studies
regarding this project. In a project originally slated to cost
$65,000,000 one might have thought they would have done
something.
The Observer asked many people this question, “Do you believe
that the Columbia County has learned nothing more of this
project since July of 2008, the only time they admitted talking
about it?”
Most of the answers were unprintable and many of the
respondents just laughed. Of course, the names of the
respondents have been omitted to protect them from the
retaliation which is so easily doled out by the “Good Old Boys”
of Columbia County.
In a project of this magnitude, it is time the County Manager
and the County Commission came out of the shadows and began
leveling with people of Columbia County.
On July 1, 2008 County Manager Dale Williams is purported to
have told the board that regarding this project there are more
questions than answers.
One year later the County Manager and the County Commission
have come up with nothing.