Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 3, 1995 TAG: 9502030064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Wythe County residents who oppose construction of a private prison prepared Thursday to take their battle to Richmond.
Representatives of Citizens Against the Prison want to meet with Gov. George Allen and Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore.
Their move follows the 4-3 vote Wednesday night by the county Board of Supervisors to invite Corrections Corporation of America to proceed with its planned 1,500-bed medium-security prison.
``It's not a prison issue anymore. It's a question of not being represented,'' said Farron Smith at the anti-prison organization's rented quarters on Main Street.
The group has collected signatures on petitions asking the General Assembly to approve an advisory referendum in Wythe County on the prison issue. But Del. Thomas Jackson, D-Hillsville, who introduced the referendum bill, said he doubted it would be approved without an endorsement from the county governing body.
The supervisors also voted 4-3 Wednesday night against endorsing Jackson's bill, but prison opponents were continuing to get signatures Thursday.
``We have over 3,200 now, and our representatives won't recognize that. And that's not democracy. That's our case, that we're not being listened to,'' Smith said. ``So [the petitions are] still very useful.''
Wythe County had 12,448 registered voters as of Wednesday afternoon, with 98 of them having registered since Jan. 19. The county registrar's office called that high for January.
Linda Butt, another prison opponent, said the group hopes to persuade legislators to require local approval in picking sites for private prisons. Its members also support the idea of putting prisons in areas where a majority of the prisoners come from, she said, such as Richmond, Norfolk or Newport News.
At Wednesday night's meeting, a prison supporter showed a reporter a copy of a letter from Allen in which the governor said the state would not get involved in selecting sites for private prisons.
CAP members criticized supervisors Olin Armentrout and Charles Dix on Thursday for gathering information on a 554-bed CCA operation in Cleveland, Texas, which CAP said was a minimum-security operation that did not compare in mission or size with the planned prison two miles east of Wytheville.
CAP wanted the supervisors to get information on a CCA prison in Clifton, Tenn., which Armentrout agreed seemed to be a poorly run operation.
Armentrout did bring back some new concessions from CCA President David Myers.
Myers agreed in writing to sell all but 100 acres of the 533-acre site back to Wythe County for a total of $1, Armentrout said, so no expansion of the 1,500-bed prison would be possible. Myers also agreed to raise some entry-level employee salaries and to increase the number of employees at the planned prison from 250 to 342.
CCA has taken a $10,000 option on the land, and Armentrout said he understood the sale price to CCA would be about $2,000 an acre.
Myers also restated CCA's commitment to provide space for county jail prisoners. ``That is, we will work with you to determine the appropriate number of beds to handle the jail needs for the county,'' Myers wrote. ``The addition will be at our expense, and an acceptable per diem will be agreed upon by the two parties.''
by CNB