Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 17, 1995 TAG: 9505170089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
The Nashville, Tenn.-based prison company has another site under option.
Stanley King, a prominent Wythe County land-auction businessman, confirmed Tuesday night that he had sold CCA an option on Bowling Green Farms, just outside the northern town limits of Wytheville. CCA Business Development Director Dana Moore said any announcement of its location would have to come from the landowner "for obvious reasons. The nature of the opposition there has been unusual."
CCA Business Development Director Dana Moore said the company had decided against renewing its option on the 533-acre farm owned by Jake and Naomi Suthers because the state request for proposals on a 1,500-bed medium-security prison required a site with two entrances and exits.
"We didn't want to ask the county to have to condemn property to get to and from the Suthers property, so we will not be renewing the option there."
Naomi Suthers said she and her husband got the word Monday.
Earlier, CCA had said it would extend its option on the property, but "they didn't consummate it with any money," Suthers said.
Citizen opposition to a prison in Wythe County began soon after CCA's announcement of its original option in December.
Jack Crosswell, a member of the Board of Supervisors, had invited CCA to look for potential sites in Wythe County after a meeting in October arranged by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon.
Supervisors Olin Armentrout and Charles Dix met in January with CCA officials in Nashville and talked with community leaders in Cleveland, Texas, on the effects of a CCA prison there. They returned with a favorable report.
Armentrout brought back several agreements from CCA officials, including higher salaries for guards, an increase in prison employees from 221 to 342, confirmation that space would be added to house county jail prisoners, and that the unused 433 acres would be sold to Wythe County for $1. The prison was to occupy 100 acres.
After hearing all that, the supervisors voted 4-3 to welcome the prison.
Moore said CCA still plans to give acreage to the county. She said the new site is big enough to allow CCA "to donate a few hundred acres back to the county, as we committed to on the Suthers property. ... We did our very best to find as much land as we had optioned previously so we would be able to donate back to the community as much as we had committed to before."
Moore said utilities would be no problem at the new site.
CCA also has gotten from the state a request for proposals on a 1,000-bed minimum-security prison, Moore said. The company hopes to be able to build and operate that prison, as well, elsewhere in Southwest Virginia, she said.
Before King's confirmation Tuesday, prison opponents gathered at the Citizens Against the Prison office in rented quarters at 134 W. Main St. in Wytheville. They pored over county maps trying to figure out where the new site could be.
"We don't know anything. We have no idea what they're talking about," said Bill Smith. "People have mentioned every tract of land around here that's got 80 to 500 acres."
But he and other prison opponents said the change probably would benefit the anti-prison movement. "Another location will bring out a whole new group of people," Smith predicted.
Citizens Against the Prison already has driven a bus convoy to Richmond to lobby against the prison, held an anti-prison rally near the Suthers farm and is planning a June 10 fund-raising dinner.
Local officials had no knowledge of the new site. Benny Burkett, executive director of the county Industrial Development Authority, said nobody from CCA had contacted him for probably 60 days.
The state has set a June 30 deadline for proposals from private prison companies.
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.