Prison cuts hurt small towns

VIENNA, Ill. -- Rodger Gossett takes a sip of coffee and imagines the state prison down the road closing.

"This whole area would be devastated," Gossett said Wednesday at Dolly's Restaurant near the Vienna Correctional Facility, one of two prisons Gov. George Ryan proposes closing to save money.

"The state put prisons in Southern Illinois to help with jobs -- that was the deal -- so why do they want to close them down?" said Gossett. Others at his table agreed.

On Wednesday, Ryan proposed closing the 37-year-old minimum-security Vienna prison, as well as the Valley View juvenile prison in St. Charles in Chicago's far western suburbs as part of a series of cuts in his fiscal 2003 budget.

The closings would eliminate more than 480 jobs and save the state almost $43 million, Ryan said.

The governor's budget also includes indefinitely delaying the opening of the Thomson Correctional Center, a high-security prison awarded in 1998 to Carroll County to help compensate for job losses there. The prison, which was expected to employ 760 people, was slated to open last fall.

The Department of Corrections will try to transfer workers affected by the closings, DOC spokesman Brian Fairchild said. But whether each displaced worker receives another prison job will depend on such things as the number of people who retire from the agency, he said.

Region hit hard

The cuts would hit Southern Illinois particularly hard, because the region already struggles under the vicious cycle of a shrinking population, faltering economy and high jobless rate, residents say.

"A lot of guys who got laid off from coal mines got work at that prison," Sharon Moffett, 58, said of the Vienna prison.

Across the state, Thomson Mayor Merrie Jo Enloe said she and other local leaders will "call on our legislators" to block Ryan's plan to keep the prison empty for now. "We're going to do whatever we can to get that prison open," she said.

Enloe's town of 550 on the Mississippi River must pay more than $6,000 a month to keep a near-idle water-treatment plant operating until the new prison opens.

The first bill came due in October. Town officials will use money earmarked for new police cars to maintain the plant until the prison uses it, Enloe said.

Gov. Jim Edgar chose Thomson as the site of the prison to help compensate for jobs lost when the Savanna Army Depot just north of it shut down.

"The infrastructure (bill) is our problem," Enloe said. "But they put this prison here to provide jobs, and we've got a lot of people out of work."

It's a sentiment shared by Tillie Kerley, 92, who took a table at Dolly's for a cup of coffee and a chat.

Kerley, who has lived near Vienna for 69 years, said she has seen the area go from boom to bust and back again. And although she's sure Southern Illinois will survive its latest blow, she's angry at the man who dealt it.

"I want to go up there to Gov. Ryan's front porch, and knock it down," she said.