FROM OTHER NEWSPAPERS: PRISON EASY TO PICK

The state's Joint Committee on Corrections failed Gov. Mel Carnahan last week. The committee was expected to give the governor two recommended sites for proposed, $73 million maximum-security prisons to be opened in the year 2000.

Instead, the committee gave the governor three candidates -- Charleston, Licking and, our favorite, Trenton. Almost everyone knew even before the committee voted that Charleston, home of former Gov. Warren Hearnes, would get one of the new prisons. Indeed, Charleston won the most votes from the committee.

But Trenton and Licking finished dead even in the voting. And while that would seem to leave the governor with a dilemma, we think we can help.

Gov. Carnahan is a faithful advocate of helping Northwest Missouri through some economic down time that other parts of the state have been fortunate to escape. Trenton is a poster city for those economic woes. It lost 20 percent of its population in the 1980s. The Rock Island Railroad alone yanked 350 good-paying jobs out of twon in that decade.

Yet, this community of 6,000 has fought back. It's economic foundation is built on the community college, nearby hog farms and Carnation Food and radiator plants. These are solid Northwest Missouri workers as witnessed in the communities 2.4 percent unemployment rate.

We believe that if all other aspects of the bids from the two competing communities are equal, then Trenton holds the edge. It needs the jobs just to keep its young people from moving out of Northwest Missouri.