CHARLESTON TOP SITE FOR PRISON

A legislative committee Wednesday chose Charleston as the top site for a state prison.

But the 12-member committee of House and Senate lawmakers deadlocked over whether to recommend Licking in south-central Missouri or Trenton in the north-central part of the state as the second site for a prison.

The Joint Committee on Correctional Institutions and Problems dropped Lewistown, in northeast Missouri, from the list of finalists during an hour-and-15-minute meeting Wednesday morning in Jefferson City.

Gov. Mel Carnahan will make the final decision on where to build the two prisons, which could be in operation within three years.

The state plans to build two maximum security prisons at a cost of $146 million. Each would be designed to house 1,500 inmates.

Sen. Danny Staples, D-Eminence, chairs the legislative committee. He was one of nine committee members who voted for the Charleston site.

Staples also wanted to recommend Licking as a prison site. But Licking tied with Trenton, each receiving seven votes from committee members.

Staples recessed the meeting after a motion was made to recommend three sites to the governor. Staples said Carnahan previously indicated he wanted the committee to recommend two sites.

The committee chairman said he won't be able to talk to Carnahan until the governor returns from a 16-day trade mission to Southeast Asia.

Staples said the committee likely won't meet again until August. He said he isn't willing to recommend three sites unless the governor desires it.

Staples recessed the committee after an earlier, 15-minute recess that was called after the committee reduced the field of finalists from four to three.

Staples huddled behind closed doors with four Democratic members of the committee.

"I recessed for 15 minutes to see if I could get hold of the governor," Staples later said. He said he ended the meeting when he couldn't reach the governor.

He said he was sorry the committee didn't settle on two finalists Wednesday.

"All of the proposals were good," said Staples.

All four communities offered free land and free utility hookups.

The Charleston site is 120 acres of farm land south of Interstate 57 and the city limits.

Charleston civic leader Betty Hearnes and City Manager Dave Brewer said they were pleased the committee chose Charleston. But both said they weren't ready to celebrate yet because no final site decision has been made.

The Charleston site is the only one of the four sites that is near a four-lane highway. Hearnes said she believes that is one reason why the committee favors the Charleston site.

Hearnes, a former state representative and wife of former governor Warren Hearnes, said the prison would provide needed jobs in an area that has an annual unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent. The unemployment rate is even higher for blacks in the Charleston area, Hearnes said.

"When I say we need jobs, we need jobs," she said after attending Wednesday's committee meeting.

Hearnes said the prison would provide an economic boost that the community hasn't seen since the Brown shoe factory opened in 1937. The factory closed a few years ago.

Brewer said, "It really would be a shot in the arm for Charleston."

The prison would provide 365 jobs and an annual payroll of $9.1 million.

It also would generate related jobs. "Somebody has to provide the food and the laundry service and all of this other stuff that supports this thing," he said. "I think this just gives us a new lease on life," Brewer said.

The city has an option to buy the farm land. He estimated the city would spend $500,000 to $700,000 to buy the land and provide free water and sewer hookups if the site is chosen.

Charleston area farmer Dan Choate doesn't want the prison.

"I am not against economic gain. We want factories. We want electric motor plants. A technical school would be great," he said. "We need industries that produce income," he said.

But Choate doesn't view a state prison as an industry.

He said it would do little to lower Charleston's high unemployment. "The unemployed in Charleston are basically unemployable" he said. He said the area's unemployed live largely in public housing.

Choate believes that residents of Sikeston, New Madrid and other surrounding cities will get most of the $20,000-a-year prison-guard jobs.

He said the pay won't be enough to discourage guards from smuggling drugs into the prison.

Choate insists the prison is in a floodplain, a charge that the city manager disputes. Brewer said the legislative committee wouldn't have considered the site if it were in a flood plain.

Choate said the site is about eight miles from weak levees along the Mississippi River that protect the flatlands of Southeast Missouri from flooding.

If the levees fail, the site would be flooded, he said.

Choate said he doesn't want to live near a prison and neither do many other Charleston residents. But he said Hearnes has a lot of political pull with the governor, which makes Charleston a likely site for a prison.