The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Without it, the Fire Department would have to get water from a pond off Hull Road, about three miles away, said Councilor Steve Tucker.

The facility is also an integral part of the town’s disaster-response plan.

Camp Gabriels meeting hall, called the QWL, is the town’s official Red Cross emergency shelter.

“We set up a shelter in the (Camp Gabriels) gym during the (1998) Ice Storm,” said resident Keith Smith, a maintenance worker at the prison who attended the meeting.

“You could probably fit the whole town in there.”

Councilors drafted a resolution opposing closure of Camp Gabriels and slowly began to sort through what it might mean.

“What was the basis of their review?” asked Councilor Jeff Leavitt.

Brighton Supervisor Peter Martin Sr., who also works as a correction officer at the prison, recused himself from voting.

Martin said state lawmakers have begun asking DOCS for more information.

“The senator (Betty Little) doesn’t know. The bosses don’t know. They (the state) are not really telling us a whole lot,” he said.

In a phone call to DOCS in Albany, the Press-Republican was told there is no published study available to the public and that data driving the decision was generated in an internal review process.

DOCS said in a statement last week that closing the three minimum-security camps and one medium-security prison would allow them to save about $44 million in operating costs to offset the $91 million it will cost to create new programs for treatment of mentally ill inmates and incarcerated sex offenders mandated by the State Legislature.

DOCS also said the number of inmates at minimum-security prisons dropped 47 percent in the past decade.

Martin said the community should create an inventory to gauge what the larger impact closure would be on area businesses, including local fuel companies, food service, hospitals, contractors, the postal service, UPS, fire and rescue services and part-time teachers.

The 187 inmates are also considered residents of the town, adding population used to calculate emergency-service rates.

“It’s a big fallout for everybody,” Martin said.

Leavitt, who is also a member of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Committee, said that group tallied some approximate numbers Wednesday, counting 104,525 hours of community service done regionally by inmates in 2007 between January and the end of November.

They estimated the work crews spared towns roughly $855,204 worth of minimum wages.

“And that’s just labor,” Leavitt said. “A lot of these jobs won’t get done, because the towns can’t afford to do it.”

The total general and highway funds in Brighton were about half that at $478,000 last year.

Councilors decided to ask DOCS for a tour of the facility to take stock.

“If it (closure) does happen, what are we going to do?” said Councilor Sheila Delarm. “We should start putting wheels in motion. We may only have a year here.”

Martin said Saranac Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Director Sylvie Nelson had contacted him looking to form an economic redevelopment committee to help work toward solutions.

“But the property is state-owned until they tell us what they’re going to do with it.”

Delarm said the redevelopment process should parallel efforts at this point to keep the prison open.

In a first brainstorming session, councilors came up with several scenarios for reuse, including a veterans’ rehabilitation facility for disabled soldiers; an expansion site for Paul Smith’s College or Trudeau Institute; a campus for the Adirondack Leadership Program, which also has a wilderness base in nearby Onchiota; or DOCS programs for elderly inmates or shock-treatment programs.

Smith told the Town Council that members of the three unions involved in the closing met earlier this week to develop a plan to lobby DOCS to keep the prison open.

Unions created a Web site for public information at www.savegabriels.org and organized a rally to be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24, in the Harrietstown Town Hall.
http://www.pressrepublican.com/midday/local_story_018120138.html?start:int=0