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More questions need to be asked and answered
Monday, Dec 21, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller * Are the Quinn and Obama administrations getting ahead of themselves on this prison sale thing? It sure looks that way. One of the things lost in this entire debate is that Congress will have to approve the move of Guantanamo detainees to US soil before they can be transferred to the Thomson prison. And that legislation isn’t assured…
Ya’ think, Dick?
I’m glad to see Durbin admits that this won’t be an easy vote in an election year, to say the least. Michelle Malkin chimes in…
No inflammatory partisan rhetoric there. Move along. Nothing to see. Everything is just fine. By the way, if this prison move really was a “budget bailout” then I might feel better about it. Right now, the cash is barely a drop in the bucket. * The next question that should be asked is whether the feds will still want to buy Thomson even if the Gitmo prisoner move is nixed or delayed indefinitely by Congress. After being forced into a state of limbo when the state refused to fully open the prison, the residents of Thomson might be once again left dangling on a string while the feds dither as well. In other words, they shouldn’t get their hopes up, despite the rhetoric from people like Ray LaHood…
Make no mistake, this area is a backwater…
I lived briefly in Savanna, back in 1982 when unemployment hovered somewhere around 20 percent. I think I was able to get the only available part-time job in town - two hours a day cleaning up after the local butcher. That job was about as fun as it sounds. Not at all. Savanna used to be a railroad boom town, but those days are long gone. The Savanna Army Depot was the one remaining economic engine, but that’s long gone. The nearest prosperity is either Galena to the north or the Quad Cities downriver. And the benefits from this prison may not be huge for the immediate area…
Even so, if that’s all the Thomson-area folks get, they’ll probably still be overjoyed. What they have right now is nothing. * Related…
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- Anonymous - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 11:03 am:
Gov. Quinn should get the money up front from LaHood and all, and then let the feds worry about owning an empty prison.
- Will County Woman - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 11:04 am:
unlike a state prison, BOP jobs are quasi-military jobs e.g., age requirments and many tough hurdles to pass before getting a federal prison job,and i suspect many, if not most, thomson residents will not qualify for federal jobs.
i’m not trying to be mean to the people of thomson, but ther lack of education and previous work experience will not help them to get BOP jobs. if anything they’ll probably find themsleves mostly reglegated to service sector jobs, and contrary to Durbin’s claims, these jobs won’t be the kind that he boasted about last week. but of course, in most cases a job is better than no job.
i don’t find myself often in agreement with Michelle Malkin, and i’ve never really cared for her all that much as political pundit, but on the thomson issue she and i are in total agreement.
- cassandra - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 11:33 am:
If I understand the news reports correctly, Gitmo will remain open for a lengthy period anyway because there is no plan to move the prisoners who can be released but who can’t yet be placed in other countries. Who knows how long that will take. So there is an argument that if it’s going to be open anyway, why not leave all of them there. Do we have to move them just because Obama made a campaign promise. Even some of the inmates’ representatives have pointed out that Gitmo is now a well developed facility with library, recreation areas, gym, and so on, and many similar amenities would not be immediately available at Thomson.
I am absolutely neutral on the issue of Thomson, or closing Gitmo for that matter, but I do think, again, our Pat hs displayed considerable naivete in his dealings with the powers in Washington. We’re a state. We don’t have to do what the WH tells us to do. Yet I fear our Pat would be afraid to take an independent stand.
- Plutocrat03 - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 11:37 am:
One of my main concerns in this matter is how much money will the property get and what will the state do with the money.
If, as it seems we need the prison space for our own population of criminals then we need to build another facility somewhere. One of the elements of setting a price would be to find out what it will cost for the construction of a replacement facility. If no facility is needed, then the money should be used to pay off the bonds that wee sold to build this prison before dumping the rest in the General Fund.
I suspect it is too much to ask for someone in the State government to put together a complete plan.
- Fan of the Game - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 11:38 am:
Western Illinois is “Forgotonia.” Look at a road map of Illinois and see how little transportation infrastructure exists (and very little of other kinds of infrastructure). It’s no coincidence that Savanna and all of Carroll County is underdeveloped.
- Will County Woman - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 11:44 am:
“I suspect it is too much to ask for someone in the State government to put together a complete plan.”
Evidently it is too much. That is why Quinn couldn’t/wouldn’t answer questions after he rolled the (done) deal out to the people of
Illinois last month. Our governor has pretty just winged his way through an entire year of being in the governor’s office, why should we expect anything more of him?
- Responsa - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 12:31 pm:
There’s almost always “more to the story” and some of the myriad issues and considerable conflicts with respect to moving Gitmo to Thomson are starting to emerge. I find it very troubling that so much of the relevant information seems to be coming from bloggers and national media types rather than from our own pols (Quinn and Durbin) and the local cheerleading media. The initial simplistic and stealth approach to announcing Thomson and the lack of answers, especially by Quinn and Durbin and the editorial boards, about what Illinois is going to do about its own already over-crowded and antiquated prisons leaves one wondering if they had even thought of half this stuff. At best they look shady and at worst seem quite uncurious and even incompetent.
Reasonable people are looking for more information. And. I’m sorry– that is not fearmongering.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 12:43 pm:
===Reasonable people are looking for more information. And. I’m sorry– that is not fearmongering.===
Nobody said it was.
What is fear mongering is announcing things as fact that are not even close to true and doing so in such a way as to incite as much fear as possible.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 2:24 pm:
“My concern is that it has become a national Republican issue, that they’re going to oppose Thomson, with rare exception,” Durbin said Thursday.
No partisan rhetoric there. Move along. Nothing to see. Everything is just fine.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 2:25 pm:
Actually, VM, I think Durbin was just recognizing simple reality.
- Quinn T. Sential - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 2:34 pm:
The AG must still be struggling to revise and extend their opinion to answer ALL of the questions posed to them by Tom Cross. Despite the holding pattern 66% in any scored endeavor still represents a failing grade.
Has the Governor provided them the information yet as to whether; under the bonds issued to build Thomson, if the state can sell it; and subsequently not first pay off the bondholders before peeing away the balance elsewhere?
Those bonds may have traded numerous times since they were first issued; and the bondholders today may not have any idea that the original collateral may be sold out from underneath them; at the same time that new financial debt instruments issued by the state have been downgraded due to the soaring debt levels of the state and the associated increased risk that the resulting illiquidity has wrought.
If the state must first repay the bondholders concurrent with the sale; then how much un-restricted cash might would be left over afterwards? Would it even be enough to fund the MAP grant deficit? If they have to pay off the bonds to do this; and don’t get some kind of premium for doing so from the federales, then will it even be financially worth doing in the end? They may not even be able to find a qualified appraiser in Carroll County to meet the statutory requirements to facilitate the sale.
On a related matter; with all of the bombastic barbs lauched at McKenna here recently for the use of the term “bankruptcy” when referring to the State of Illinois; it seemed odd that there was nary a mention from the learned contributors here, about the commentary by the esteemed POTUS from Illinois when he told Charles Gibson last week that:
“The costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an unsustainable trajectory and if no action is taken to bring them down, the federal government will go bankrupt.”
- D.P. Gumby - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 2:36 pm:
Actually, Thomson is too far North to be in Forgotonia. Nevertheless, what you say is correct.
- econ - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 5:06 pm:
The 3,500 number of new jobs bandied about is ridiculous. Putting the total number in the thousands is akin to accounting for stimulus generated jobs in congressional districts that don’t exist.
The facts mentioned on economic development created in Florence, CO when they got their national supermax prison is damning. Durbin, Quinn, Obama et all are playing on the hopes of those in and around Thomson and there is no way this is this economic panacea they have been led to believe.
- wordslinger - Monday, Dec 21, 09 @ 10:50 pm:
Let’s debate Thomson.
Before that, do all those newfound warriors want to talk about career soldiers doing five or six turns in Afghanistan and Iraq? Or paying for those adventures?
Not a problem, I guess.