THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 15, 1996 TAG: 9602150365
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
The Planning Commission unanimously rejected Wednesday a novel project that would have created the region's first privately run correctional center for low-risk inmates.
Twin Star Enterprises, a Virginia Beach company, planned to convert the nearly vacant Princess Anne Executive Park into a kind of correctional step-down facility for up to 260 prisoners with 12 months or less to serve before being set free or paroled.
The $12.5 million, privately funded project was initiated after the General Assembly approved legislation last year that called for the privatization of some prison space as a way to lighten the load on the state's overcrowded prisons and jails.
Two of the five vacant buildings the company planned to buy were to have been gutted then re-enforced so that their neo-Georgian facades would remain untouched. One building would have housed medium-security, pre-release inmates; another would have housed minimum security, pre-release prisoners while a third would be devoted to those facing parole and or probation. A fourth would have been office space. Plans for the fifth building were incomplete. Until earlier this year, the park was occupied by a variety of city offices.
Neighbors in the semi-rural area of Princess Anne were quick to organize resistance and cited several reasons why the park on North Landing Road was not suitable for the project.
Bill Meador, a longtime resident of Princess Anne and a former Virginia Beach police officer, presented a petition with 489 signatures that he and other nearby residents gathered in just three days. All were opposed to the project, he said.
Twin Star sought to reassure the community the correctional facility would house only low-risk, nonviolent prisoners who originated from Hampton Roads and posed little, if any, risk to the community's safety.
But Meador, who was representing the petition's signatories, challenged that claim. He said residents told him that on occasion newly released prisoners from the city jail beg money, jobs or car rides from residents they happen to spot in their yards.
The mere presence of these unemployed men, and occasionally women, with criminal histories walking about the neighborhood has been cause for concern, he said. The prospect of more former prisoners was too much, he added.
On occasion, escaped jail prisoners had made their way into the area's neighborhoods, worrying residents even further, he said.
The company had said that it wanted the Princess Anne site because it already housed a work-release and work-force operation run by the Sheriff's Office. Work-release inmates are those who serve time in the evening and on weekends, usually for somewhat minor offenses, while work-force prisoners are those assigned to pick up litter along the roadside.
The Planning Commission actually had two decisions to make on the project, and it rejected both of them. The first was to create a zoning classification called O2 Correctional Facility. The city currently has no classification for jails, even though it runs a jail at the courthouse. That vote was 8-3 against.
The second vote was on the project itself, and that vote was 11-0.
Commissioner Jan Eliassen summed up the concerns of many present when he expressed a philosophical objection to privatized prison space by saying, ``If I don't like how the jail is being run, I can `fire' (Sheriff) Frank Drew by not voting for him. I can't fire anyone at Twin Star.''
The company has announced no other plans for Hampton Roads. ILLUSTRATION: Map
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