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Residents should follow prison plans

The month of March will mark five years since Blair County officials appeared to get serious about addressing the need for a new prison.

Unfortunately, county residents are justified in questioning the less-than-aggressive degree of urgency that, from the beginning, seemed to be attached to the effort. That flawed sense of urgency remains evident from the fact that the county still is years away from even starting new prison construction.

It is anyone’s guess what the eventual timetable will be for completing construction and putting the new incarceration facility into full operation.

Meanwhile, the county still does not have a site designated officially to house the prison and, thus, assembling realistic construction-cost figures is destined to remain in limbo indefinitely.

It also is important to remember that each year new prison costs are not locked in, the project costs will continue to increase and the burden on county taxpayers will increase as well.

For decades, county leaders continued to speak proudly about being fiscally responsible, but at the same time, were failing to acknowledge the unpleasant fiscal ramifications of not addressing this important need when it could have been done at a much lower cost.

In effect, for decades, county leaders were rolling the dice in a “game” that ultimately would be impossible to win.

It isn’t as if the current prison has had a debatable “shelf life.” For the Blair prison for many years, the proverbial shelf life probably expired long before “shelf life” became a recognizable term with a recognizable meaning.

It is not difficult to know why. The prison was built between 1868 and 1869 — not between 1968 and 1969 –and its largest expansion was in 1983 — about 42 years ago.

County Commissioners Chairman Dave Kessling, who also chairs the county’s prison board, remarked at a prison board meeting on Jan. 9 that “we’re not building this prison just for today … we’re building this for 20 to 30 years down the road … so we want to make sure we get it right.”

Actually, the mindset ought to be that the county is striving to build an incarceration facility capable of serving the county’s needs for at least 50 or 60 years.

Granted, the current prison project was hindered from moving ahead by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the project has not been pushed forward as expeditiously as it could have been since the pandemic ended, and that will be another culprit in the construction’s final cost when the last tally is finished.

Likewise, acquiring land has been slowed by landowners who have opposed the prospect of a prison being built near to where they reside, but it is believed that obstacle is on the verge of being overcome.

Now is the time for county residents who have been lackadaisical about following new prison developments to really start paying attention, with release of a new feasibility study reportedly only days away.

County residents have the Blair County Prison Society watching for new developments and opportunities to provide input as the planning process continues to gear up. However, other residents must watch for ways in which they too can provide comment based on their important observations.

To all, the best advice is to do your part to help the proverbial dice land the right way.

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