'Citizens Opposed' meet with State Leaders on Prison

According to Senator Russell Pearce,who will take the reins as the new president of the Arizona Senate, and Director of Arizona State Corrections, Charles Ryan, "they (DOC) have never located a prison in a community which did not want them there."

This statement was in response to a question asked yesterday during a meeting at the Capital with Globe Councilman Terry Wheeler and members of the Globe Citizens Opposed, where it was noted that Globe's Mayor, Fernando Shipley has gone on record as saying, "This is on their land (State land) and I don't know if we could stop one (a prison) even if we wanted to."

This concept of "not being able to stop it even if we wanted to" has since been echoed by Vice Mayor Thea Wilshire and others in an apparent attempt to lead the public to believe it is out of their hands.

According to the DOC and the State's highest ranking Senator, that is not the case.

Pearce, who believes strongly in one-man, one-vote and having elected officials represent their constituents, looked puzzled and said he didn't know where the Mayor might be getting that idea." No," he said, "there were many communities who did want a prison...and that he, nor the Department of Corrections had any interest in siting a prison in a community where the citizens did not want it."

In fact, Director Ryan added, "...In twenty five years, the DOC has never put in a prison where a community objected."

The meeting on Tuesday at the Capitol, included District 5 Senator, Sylvia Allen who had driven in from Heber to be at the meeting, Senator Pearce, Director Charles Ryan, Jennifer Bowser and Dona Marie Markley with the DOC and five members of the Citizens Opposed: Jim and Kelly Moss, Charlie Anderson, Linda Gross, and Sarah Bernstein.

Wheeler, who had arranged for the meeting, led off with his concerns about Globe's infrastructure and the ability to even meet the demands of a prison's infrastructure needs. He noted that in the water settlement with the San Carlos Tribe , the City of Globe was allotted 2500 acre feet per year. The City is currently using 1600 acre feet, leaving 900 acre feet for development.  The 1000 bed prison complex is expected to use just over 200 acre feet per year.

"But our straw is located on the outermost edge of the aquifer, Wheeler explained. And we don't know if it will always beable to access the water that's in the aquifer."

When asked about whether recharge rates of the aquifer itself have remained constant, Wheeler says the San Carlos Tribe, who owns the land which the aquifer sits on, has not permitted the City to sink test sites on reservation land to determine whether the aquifer is recharging at the same rate it was when the agreement was made in 2004.

The issue of water could trump any other objection to siting such a large prison complex in Globe, and Wheeler made it clear that this issue had not been sufficiently addressed at the local level to even ensure a prison developer of sufficient infrastructure. Something Ryan alluded to earlier in his remarks when he noted the absolute importance of sufficient infrastructure such as water and sewer to handle the needs of a prison.

"We are heartened to hear your position on this," said Jim Moss, who spoke of the local groundswell of opposition to the idea of another prison in Globe. He provided proof to those assembled by pulling out the file of 2500+ petition signatures and hundreds of postcards from registered voters which the group has collected in the last five months.

Moss went on to acknowledge that "...there may be communities who want a prison of the kind proposed, "...but we do not want one in Globe,"  he said. "We already have a prison."

Dona Marie Marley, Planning & Special Projects Administrator, has said the RFP for the State's 5000 additional beds is currently being re-written with new stringent security guidelines in response to the Kingman incident and will be discussed in executive session Mid-December. It is expected to come out of committee and be released to bidders by the end of December and bidders will have 2 months to compile their bids and submit them back to the DOC.  At this point the DOC will hold public hearings in the communities which are vying for the prison beds.

The debate between the citizens of Globe and some of it's elected officials over this issue is not over. But citizen voices just got a leg up in the debate from Senators Sylvia Allen and Russell Pearce and DOC Director Charles Ryan who seem quite prepared to listen closely to the will of the people on this issue.