Newberry and 2 more to close?--Update--Sen Allen wants e-mails with ideas!

[mi_girl_2004]

Local officials dig in for Newberry prison fight

By JACK STOREY/The Evening News

June 6, 2005

NEWBERRY - Though clearly worried, a Luce County official today said the threatened closing of state prisons in Newberry and Manistique is hauntingly familiar territory for local people.

On Thursday, a State Senate subcommittee voted 3-2 to close the Newberry prison and its subsidiary, Camp Manistique, in a money saving move. The move stunned state Corrections Department officials, who earlier recommended closure of a privately operated prison in Baldwin.

Terry Stark, chairman of the Luce County Board, today said the surprise move would be "devastating" for Luce County, which is still struggling nearly 20 years after the state mental hospital pulled out of Newberry.

"We've been there before with the state hospital," Stark said, adding that local people also fought off a preliminary closure move on the Newberry prison last year.

Stark vowed that a local campaign to reverse the party-line subcommittee action starts now. "We'll start hitting it on the county level," Stark vowed.

While worried, the county board chairman said the subcommittee action is a long way from final in the annual summer wrangle over the Michigan budget. He did not discount the threat posed by the 3-2 subcommittee vote, but noted the annual budget battles are just beginning.

"We're struggling to keep our heads above water. It's hard to believe we've got to go through it again," Stark observed.

The unexpected prison closure switch followed a well publicized campaign by Lake County partisans to preserve the much smaller and troubled youth correctional facility in Baldwin. A recent state audit of prisons ranked that private prison among the highest cost prisons in the state on a per-prisoner basis.

Much larger than the Baldwin prison, Newberry houses about 1,100 inmates. The prison and the subsidiary Manistique camp employ 345 people, many of them local. A critical element in a recent economic revival in chronically depressed Luce County, the Newberry prison is the county's largest employer.

The vote to switch Newberry for the Baldwin prison followed strict party lines; the three Republicans on the subcommittee voted for the move and the two Democrats voted against.

The apparent political partisanship that figured in the voting in Lansing pits two rural counties in similar economic straits against each other. Baldwin and Lake County are represented by a Republican. Newberry is represented by first-term State Representative Gary McDowell (D-Rudyard).

State Sen. Mike Prusi (D-Ishpeming) charged the subcommittee Republicans with playing politics with the prison-closing vote. "I am disappointed that my Republican colleagues would play politics with people's jobs and the public's safety," Prusi said in a statement.

State Sen. Alan Cropsey of DeWitt, a Republican, attempted to deflect the charge by saying he had to close something in the sprawling state prison system. Cropsey charged that Newberry is a former mental hospital not built to house prisoners.

He also noted that closing the larger Newberry prison would save the state $12 million more than the small Baldwin facility that houses 480 inmates with a high employee count of 230. He did not deny the inefficiency charge leveled against the Baldwin youth prison by auditors.

For his part, McDowell acknowledged virtually no local representatives saw the Newberry switch coming. He said he was on the House of Representatives floor Thursday when state Corrections Director Pat Caruso informed him of the surprise move.

"This is definitely a step backward ... We'll do everything we can to reverse this decision," McDowell vowed.

The freshman Democrat said the Newberry switch is the second major budgetary swipe by Lansing officials against Upper Peninsula institutions this year. He noted that an earlier budget slash proposes to cut Northern Michigan University's state aid by a total of 31 percent over five years.

He acknowledged that the budget whack at NMU was matched in part by a similar budget slice at Wayne State University.

"That's a $4.5 million cut (at Northern) for next year. Next ones they'll go after are LSSU and (Michigan) Tech," he said.

McDowell said he plans to ask every Upper Peninsula representative and senator to join a consortium to halt what McDowell views as an "attack" on the Upper Peninsula. "They're targeting the U.P.," he said, strongly implying the people doing the targeting are Republicans currently in control of both houses in the state legislature.

At the same time, McDowell, like Stark, said the Newberry prison vote was a low-level maneuver by a handful of state senators. "This is the first shot. We're a long way from a done deal," McDowell said.


Link to story

[deb]

Financial crunch: State budget woes tough to resolve
By JOHN PEPIN, Journal Munising Bureau

NEWBERRY - Lawmakers talked about tough budgetary choices and times at a public forum on a proposed prison closure in Luce County Friday as the economic future of the village of Newberry hangs in the balance.

Though Democrats and Republicans both said they need to find a way to keep the Newberry Correctional Facility and Camp Manistique in Schoolcraft County from closing, no firm commitments or revolutionary ideas came to light.
"Unfortunately, the lives of 345 families are held hostage until we come to a solution," said 109th District. Rep. Steve Adamini, D-Marquette.

A deal to include funding for the two facilities fell apart this week when key Democrats said they would not vote for a massive omnibus budget bill and Republicans refused to add an amendment to save the prisons.

Rep. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, had suggested amending the bill to cut prison spending across-the-board by about 3 percent, along with savings from energy efficiency upgrades to keep the two Upper Peninsula facilities operating.

However, Casperson said Friday Republican leaders in the House would not allow him to offer the amendment, and another to preserve funding for Northern Michigan University, unless Democrats Gary McDowell of Rudyard, Adamini and Rich Brown of Bessemer voted for the entire budget bill.

McDowell said he couldn't support the Republican budget.

"It's a cruel budget," he said. "It hurts our most vulnerable citizens."

The Republican budget was approved by a 58-52 vote with no adjustments in funding for the two Luce County correctional facilities or the university. However, Casperson said he still is hopeful the situation will be rectified.

"I believe we're going to work this through," he said. "I believe that with all of my heart."

The budget will now be sent to the Senate, which is working on its own version that also contains no funding for the Luce County prisons and cuts NMU funding by 10 percent.

State 33rd District Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, said the budget picture looks bleak with an expectation that up to three prisons must be closed to balance the budget.

He said no promises could be made that Newberry will not shut down.

"I can make no assurances at this time," Cropsey said. "We have more money to cut out of the state budget than what was originally thought."

Cropsey said he plans to tour the prison while in Newberry and understands the impact on the community if the prisons close.

"We have to balance the budget and when you balance the budget when times are tough, there's a tremendous human cost involved," Cropsey said.

State 38th District. Sen. Mike Prusi, D-Ishpeming, said he plans to offer an amendment restoring funding for the Newberry prison.

Prusi said that facility fares better by comparison than a privately-run "punk prison" proposed for closure last February in Gov. Jennifer Granholm's budget, but kept open in the Republican budget.

The Michigan Youth Correctional Facility in downstate Lake County has reports of critical incidents up to four times higher than state prisons and much higher rates of suicide attempts, Prusi said.

"We've found out that more than half of the people who work at the Baldwin facility do not live in Lake County," Prusi said.

Economically, that prison is also more expensive to run than Newberry and Camp Manistique, according to a May report by the non-partisan state Auditor General's office.

"The numbers are on our side," Prusi said.


However, when looking at facilities to close, Cropsey said Newberry and Camp Manistique are more expensive than other facilities of the same security level, according to the same report.

Newberry Village Manager Beverly Holmes asked Casperson when lawmakers are going to stop using the village and its residents as a poker chip. She said his proposal of cuts was fair and he should have stuck to it.

Casperson said he'll still pursue the measure.

Several of the lawmakers fanned political rhetoric, each blaming the other for the budget amendment deal falling through. Some reiterated the process has just begun and a final decision is not likely to occur until late September, unless each side can work something out sooner.

Newberry Village Manager Robert Cameron said he returned from Lansing disillusioned with the political process he saw in action this week.

"Our representatives are going to have to start representing the people and not their parties," Cameron said.

State 37th District. Sen. Jason Allen, R-Traverse City, said lawmakers are looking for ideas for where they can cut money from the state Department of Corrections budget.

"If you have ideas, shoot us an e-mail," he said.

Cropsey said he is scheduled to meet with DOC officials next week to take suggestions on where money might be trimmed from the $1.8 billion corrections budget.

Granholm spokesman Matt Johnson said the governor is against the proposed Newberry prison closure.

"It's bad public policy to shut down the Newberry Correctional Facility," Johnson said. "The governor is against this. The governor will fight to keep Newberry Correctional Facility open."

McDowell said Granholm's best bet may be to veto the entire budget bill once it reaches her desk. She can use line-item veto power to take out the Baldwin facility, but not add money in for Newberry, he said.

"Hopefully, the governor will veto the whole bill and we go back and start over and do it right this time," he said.


Deb

[Tuberose]

Does this seem to be an emotional personal battle going on? If they would deal with crime appropriately they could probably close a lot more than 2 or 3 prisons because they wouldn't be needed.