THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604250208
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Growing neighborhood opposition and disappearing state funding put a quick end to plans to run a private correctional unit for low-risk inmates in the Princess Anne Courthouse area.
The project, known as Twin-Star Enterprises, was laid to rest Tuesday night at the behest of City Councilman Robert K. Dean, who told a crowd of interested spectators that the state Department of Corrections had decided not to fund it.
``This issue is dead and it's a moot point now,'' said Dean to a burst of applause.
Dean then asked the council to kill two proposed zoning ordinance changes before them that would allow correctional units to be built on sites designated for office use. Dean also asked that the issue be restudied by the Planning Commission, which had rejected the plan in mid-February.
The council obliged, voting unanimously to deny the suggested ordinance changes and to send them back to the Planning Commission. A second part of the inmate housing package, a request to refit existing office buildings, is to come before the council in the next week or so. The action Tuesday night makes that step a moot point, Dean and fellow council members agreed.
Twin-Star Enterprises is a Virginia Beach company formed to develop a step-down correctional facility for 260 prisoners in the nearly vacant Princess Anne Executive Park office complex, a stone's throw from the Virginia Beach Municipal Center.
The $12.5 million project was initiated after the General Assembly approved legislation last year that called for the privatization of some prison space as a way to ease overcrowding.
Principals in the company are former U.S. Marshall George R. Hale and former Sheriff's Deputy Jack Dewan, who wanted to convert a cluster of office buildings into housing for prospective parolees and medium and minimum security prison inmates placed in the state's pre-release programs.
The plan drew immediate fire from neighbors in the semi-rural neighborhoods surrounding the Municipal Center.
At the Tuesday night council session, Matthew Brown, proprietor of a courthouse restaurant and leader of a group opposing the project, asked that the application be spiked.
``We don't want to be the city with open arms for trouble makers of the area,'' he said.
Reba McClanan, a former council member who is challenging Dean for his Princess Anne Borough seat in the May 7 election, agreed.
``I just think it would be a good idea to put it to bed,'' she told the council.
Hale said he learned of the dearth of state funding through an April 15 letter from the Department of Corrections.
``It came from out of the blue,'' he said. ``It took about six years of planning to do this.''
Hale said his inmate housing proposal was spurred by an RFP (request for proposal) initiated last year by the state Department of Corrections. The RFP was prompted in turn by General Assembly legislation in 1995 calling for privatization of some prison space.
Twin Star Enterprises sought the Princess Anne site because it already houses a work-release and work-force program supervised by the Sheriff's Department. Work-release inmates are those who serve time in the evening and on weekends, usually for minor offenses. Work-force prisoners are those assigned to pick up litter along the roadside. ILLUSTRATION: Map
by CNB