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It is an important development that possible sites for a new Blair County prison -- three total -- have been identified.
However, what is even more important is that the three current elected county commissioners -- Chairman Dave Kessling, Amy
Webster and Laura Burke -- have made a verbal commitment to move the new prison project forward, unlike predecessor boards who talked about the need for a new lockup but did nothing -- or next to nothing -- to advance such a project.
Reasons for the predecessors' inaction were obvious -- fear over possible political ramifications stemming from the project's estimated cost; and their demonstrated lack of understanding about how the county could pay for the new multimillion-dollar structure without severe hardship being imposed on taxpayers.
What must be kept in mind is that a new prison could have been built a couple of decades ago at a much lower cost and, by now, the bill for that construction would be well on its way to being paid in full.
So much for those many instances of former commissioners' self-praise for "holding the line" and "fiscal responsibility" when what they really were doing was setting the stage for taxpayers of the 2020s to carry whatever more expensive load there might be to make a new prison happen.
Kessling made a reasonable, well-intentioned -- but questionable -- observation when he said, "there's no board of commissioners who wants to build a prison because it's a death sentence for re-election." That's only partially accurate.
Such a project does not have to be a "death sentence" if taxpayers are fed honesty on a continuing basis rather than counterproductive distraction aimed at stirring up negative emotions or creating confusion that encourages inaction to prevail.
"It is going to be extremely costly, but I'm proud of this board for taking it on," Kessling continued. "It needs to be done, not only for the county, but for the future of the county."
That kind of message should have been dominant decades ago.
Burke, unable to attend the commissioners meeting at which the report dealing with potential construction sites was delivered, said in a statement later that "while there will be a high monetary cost to the project, we will be better off as a county in the long run when we have a modern correctional facility that meets our needs."
Meanwhile, Webster, joined by Kessling, said she has no intention of backing away from the project because of the substantial estimated cost.
Kessling was mostly right when he voiced his opinion that the project has been neglected for years. Actually, he would have been more accurate if he had said "decades."
No one has to be a math genius or expert in construction costs to know that the county could have saved many millions of dollars if the new prison project had been pursued even 10 years ago. But imagine how much more money the county could have saved if, rather than opting for renovations in 1990 or 2004, the county had chosen the new construction option.
As for the site of the proposed 440-bed facility, the commissioners are correct in the direction they are leaning, to build the new prison in Allegheny Township on land behind the former Calvin House restaurant between Alto-Reste cemetery and the Hollidaysburg Veterans Home.
It will easily house the proposed 165,950-square-foot prison and will be convenient from a distance standpoint to the county courthouse.
Nothing must get in the way of what is happening now on the prison front.