
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 21, 1995                   TAG: 9504210090
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ANDY KEGLEY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE WYTHE TRAVESTY CONTINUES

THIS NEWSPAPER has provided more print on the proposed siting of a private prison in Wythe County than any other issue here since it abandoned daily coverage beyond the New River Valley a couple of years ago. Admittedly, this is a great public-policy issue - controversy, politics, recall petitions, prisons, economic development. But by not watching and reporting this beat as thoroughly as it might, the lack of perspective and understanding on this story was revealed in the startling April 6 editorial, ``Prison bars of irony.''

Sadly, the editorial was as full of holes as the leaky logic of the governor, our county Board of Supervisors, and Correction Corporation of America in their combined hardheaded determination to circumvent state laws in building a quasi-public facility in Wythe County and others elsewhere around the state. The editorial failed to make mention of many of the subtleties of our opposition, including the most recent action by the Board of Supervisors to sue the 177 people who felt empowered by their own legal recourse - signing a recall petition against their supervisor. This was but the latest example of the arrogance toward local citizens exhibited by most involved with the prison project.

Most blatantly, though, the editorial was flat wrong in the statement that accepting an airline ticket from CCA wasn't illegal. The appointed prosecuting attorney who argued the recall case acknowledged that as the one illegal act - thanks to a new Conflict of Interest law that went into effect this year. And the judge who heard the case deemed it sufficiently serious to go through a six-hour show-cause hearing.

Also unreported was at least one other episode demonstrating the board's greater interest in the prison than extending support to a local industry seeking a tax break to expand its manufacturing line. Only by witnessing firsthand these continued assaults on common sense and on our legal rights is the seriousness of what we're dealing with fully appreciated.

To state that ``the episode has a comic air'' about it because, without zoning, there's little our county supervisors can do about the prison is also wrong. The company, the governor and the secretary of public safety will have put a tremendous value on that 4-3 vote by the county welcoming the prison.

While these private-prison companies are targeting unzoned counties for their sites, it was disclosed at the recent informational meeting held by the Department of Corrections for interested private-prison bidders that the state fully intends for these facilities to revert to public prisons in 20 years - thus circumventing rigorous state prison-siting regulations that must be followed, even without a locality having zoning.

The real unreported irony, though, is that here in Wythe County, the supervisors are intent on maximizing public input in a proposed zoning ordinance, stating that they don't want to do something that their citizens don't want. Had that logic prevailed on the prison issue, this divisive travesty would have been avoided.

Andy Kegley, of Wytheville, works for a non-profit housing authority, and is former chairman of the Wythe County Board of Supervisors.

by CNB