CAPE WON'T GET JUVENILE CENTER

The state passed over Cape Girardeau County for a proposed juvenile center. It cost 33 new jobs and about a $1 million injection into the local economy.

Under the 1995 Juvenile Crime Bill, the Missouri Division of Youth Services was to build two 20-bed facilities in the southeast region, one on each side of Highway 67. The city of New Madrid got one; Cabool the other.

Nobody seemed surprised.

"We pretty much knew that New Madrid was the front-runner for this side," industrial recruiter Mitch Robinson said. "They had political contacts. (state Rep.) Gene Copeland was pushing for it, and we have a Democratic administration."

New Madrid offered the Division of Youth Services free land at its southern Interstate 55 interchange and offered to run utilities to the site. Cape Girardeau County's final offers were a site near the regional airport and another on Highway 74. Neither was free.

DYS officials were looking for easy-to-develop sites near medical and education resources. A total of 18 cities and counties from the 28-county region sent in applications.

With two hospitals, a large medical complex, a university and Interstate 55 access, Cape Girardeau County commissioners initially felt they had much to offer. They proposed to give the state land in Klaus Park.

Nearby residents objected. Then the city of Cape Girardeau offered some free land on the airport property. The Airport Advisory Board showed up at a public hearing to voice objections.

"By the time Gene Copeland got interested, it didn't make any difference to us," Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said. "We had the Klaus Park fiasco, and then the airport people made a scene at the hearing.

"The people from DYS couldn't get out of here quick enough."

"Historically, they have not put that type of facility in any place where people have strong objections," Commissioner Joe Gambill added. "I felt we wouldn't get it."

But even having a center in New Madrid will be better for Cape Girardeau County. The county currently sends people who go through the juvenile court system to the Sears Center in Poplar Bluff. With a center in New Madrid, time and mileage expenses will be cut in half.

The facility is expected to open in early 1998.

And failure to get the state facility won't interfere with plans to expand the 32nd Judicial Circuit Juvenile Center on Merriwether Street in Cape Girardeau, where overcrowding has been a problem for some time. That center holds juvenile offenders for shorter periods.

The county plans to hire an architect to study the feasibility of adding more beds to the current site, located near Indian Park.

"What is Indian Park now is actually county property," Juvenile Officer Randy Rhodes said. "We also may consider some ground out in the county."

The expansion may create a couple new jobs, Rhodes said.