THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 5, 1994 TAG: 9411050646
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CAPE CHARLES LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
If the land sale goes through, Cape Charles will have a $76 million neighbor - a 1,267-inmate, maximum-security prison.
Gov. George Allen's office announced Friday that the Department of Corrections has signed an option to buy 108-acre farm about one-quarter mile southeast of Route 13 near the main road into Cape Charles.
``The construction of this prison is an important step for the implementation of our truth-in-sentencing and parole-abolition plan,'' Allen said.
The state also announced it hopes to buy 346 acres for a prison farm in the southwest corner of Sussex County, near its border with Greensville County.
Workers for the farm will come from a work center to be built on the site of the current Greensville Correctional Center near the town of Jarrett.
The two facilities will be very different, officials say. The Eastern Shore prison will house the some of the state's ``most dangerous people,'' corrections officials said. The Sussex facility will be minimum-security for non-violent convicts.
Northampton's prison, a few miles east of Cape Charles, would employ 425, and would have an annual operating budget of more than $18 million. It could open in the fall of 1998, if construction funding is made available by the 1995 General Assembly. Corrections officials said they think this outcome is likely.
Tom Harris, Northampton administrator, said the county would move quickly to make sure public schools and the Eastern Shore Community College develop training programs to fill prison jobs.
Corrections officials said that starting salaries would begin at $17,166 and rise to more than $18,000 after a year. That's good money in a county where the median income is $12,000 and unemployment is 5.4 percent.
``If it's going to be here, we need to capitalize on it,'' said Harris. ``We need to reverse the economic situation here. Period.''
The proposed prison is nearly twice the size of the 750-bed facility corrections officials envisioned in 1993. Ron Angelone, director of the Department of Corrections, said the planned facility would be larger because the state doesn't have enough maximum-security prisons.
He doesn't expect residents in the area to protest the prison's location.
``The majority of the (county) board of supervisors approved of the concept, and I would assume they are speaking for the majority of people in the area,'' said Angelone in a telephone interview. ``I'd be taken aback if all of a sudden there was an uproar, when it's been known there for quite a while that this was a serious concept.''
The land is owned by Lorraine Williams of New Jersey and Guy Battaglia Sr. of Norfolk. Realty agent Chip Watson was broker for the deal. The farm's fields, currently planted with soybeans, are screened from the sight of Route 13 by a stand of trees. Nearby roads are lined with low-income homes.
John McCluskey, chief deputy director of the Department of Corrections, said he chose the land because it had good soil and was well situated in the event of a hurricane. He said Cape Charles town leaders had responded positively to the idea that the prison could share its water and wastewater system.
``There are existing services that we would use,'' said McCluskey.
In Sussex County, work on the proposed 300-bed correctional work center that will supply labor for the prison farm expected to be complete by the end of next July.
The Department of Corrections will work with Virginia Tech University to see which crops the inmates can grow most effectively. Once the work farm is fully operational, Virginia Tech will conduct crop research there. ILLUSTRATION: Map
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS PRISON by CNB