Relocation may ignore public's interest

Remember the old math story problems they used to give fourth-graders in school? Well, how about this one:

Question: If a legislator wants to move an old prison and build a new one at a cost of $461 million in order to allow private development of the land on which the state prison is currently located and appraised at $92.4 million, how much money would taxpayers make on the deal?

Answer: None. Taxpayers would lose over $368 million.

That's according to a study, "Evaluation of the Feasibility of Relocating the Utah State Prison," prepared in October 2005 for Division of Facilities Construction and Management, or DFCM, the Department of Administrative Services and the state.

Well, that's the same idea state Rep. Greg Hughes passed in HB445 in the last general session that established a Prison Relocation And Development Authority, "an independent, nonprofit, separate body corporate and politic, with perpetual succession." From the beginning, the purpose of the bill was to sell the property for private development, rather than what is in the public's interest. Which raises the question: as an elected official, whose interest should legislators be working for — private developers or taxpayers?

Past studies have found moving the prison unfeasible, and they included using existing state-owned property. HB445 will be letting out bidding regarding prison relocation to private parties; however, it appears they have not considered location, or how it would affect local communities, and use of tax dollars. Prior to the introduction of HB445, former state Sen. Al Mansell and other individuals were trying to get legislation that would exclude entirely the state from selling the prison property as established by the state's competitive bidding process.

HB445 allows for a study to be conducted by the Legislature to sell the prison for private development, rather than the feasibility to do so. That seems to bypass the established way of having the DFCM conduct the study. Are we headed for another transparency problem as with UDOT ignoring established protocols? There seems to have been no consideration for how much money the state might lose on the deal, including construction costs for a new prison, demolition of the old one, transition, relocation or loss of staff, training, safety, site acquisition and new operating costs for starters.

It appears no consideration was given about family visits, which are so important for rehabilitation of prisoners. Seems those are some of the questions that would be important to ask, rather than how can we move the prison for private development.