DECISION ON PRISON SITES WILL BE WATCHED

Efforts by the state of Missouri to locate two new prisons took a bizarre turn last week when the Joint House-Senate Committee on Corrections met and did something that for months its leaders had said they wouldn't do: Recommend to the governor anything but two final sites. After months of firm statements by chairman Sen. Danny Staples, D-Eminence, that the governor wanted only two sites, and that that is what the committee would recommend, Staples led the committee, by a vote of 11-1, in sending to the governor the three sites it had settled on last July. Go figure.

Exactly what this means for the three finalists -- Charleston, Licking and Trenton -- is hard to determine. It certainly can be read as harming the chances of Charleston, which had scored high with the joint committee, garnering a first-place nine out of 12 committee votes. This included five of six Republican members and four of six Democrats on the equally divided panel. Trenton and Licking had tied for second place with seven votes each. This is where chairman Staples had left it more than two months ago, insisting all the while that he would narrow it down to a recommendation of two sites.

Alone among the three sites, Licking has fairly significant local opposition, which is evidenced by the lawsuit opponents there have filed. Licking has neither a gas line nor a local hospital of any kind, and might not have made it through any screening process had it not been for its powerful patron: Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Mike Lybyer, D-Huggins. Lybyer joined Staples in voting to sustain the governor's infamous veto of the bill banning partial birth abortions. Many observers believe these two difficult votes from senators who had backed the bill last May were demanded in exchange for one of the prisons' being located in Licking.

How this will all play out remains unknown, at least until Gov. Mel Carnahan announces his decision. A Carnahan spokesman said this week that such an announcement is two weeks off. Lots of folks in Southeast Missouri, and throughout the entire state, will be watching this one very closely.