State's plan to add prisons draws nibbles from towns

By DEBORAH PETERSEN SWIFT

July 25, 2000 Web posted at: 1:46 PM EDT (1746 GMT)

In this story: Prison perks Towns express interest RELATED STORIES

HARTFORD, Connecticut (The Hartford Courant) -- In Niantic, soccer moms drop off their children at playing fields set alongside prison fences, and inmates serve up dinners at the Lions Club annual July Fourth lobster fest.

In Somers, the ``tans'' - as the inmates dressed in tan-colored uniforms are known around town - tend the flowers outside town hall, and dust the desks in the offices inside.

These towns and others have endured the downside of housing the state's convicts, but they have also enjoyed perks that are more often associated with corporate suites than with prison cells.

That's why their leaders and those from 13 other communities want to know what the state is willing to put up in exchange for building more prison space in their communities. They are planning to send representatives to an informational meeting in Cheshire with Connecticut Department of Correction Commissioner John J. Armstrong on Wednesday.

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As a home to prisons for nearly three decades, Somers has experienced the full range of prison-related problems: riots, pollution of drinking water, escapees and neighbors' complaints.

But the community, like Niantic, has also had more jobs, tax money and land grants as a result of its cooperation with the prison system.

The town community center is there mostly because of prison labor, Somers First Selectman Gordon Mello said. Without the prisons, the fire department would be short one fire engine, and town coffers without $1.9 million in annual tax revenue. (Even the construction of 120 new homes and doubling the number of businesses could not match that, Mello said.) For some obvious reasons, no municipality is banging down Armstrong's door to invite more prison cells in, but most of the 15 are not slamming the door, either.

``We've all grown up with a prison in an area of our town and can say there are no more problems associated with it than with any other big business," said East Lyme First Selectman Wayne L. Fraser. The soccer and baseball fields at Bride Brook Park were created with 20 acres donated to the town by the state, and border the men's and women's prisons in the Niantic section.

The prisoners ``are good neighbors,'' and the prisons bring in $1 million in revenue, he said.

Although the men's prison does not house the higher security risks like those in Somers, home of Northern Correctional Institution, hearing praises from some of the 12 towns that have state prisons has turned the head of some communities that don't.

``At least to me it says it isn't a totally bad idea,'' said Ledyard Mayor Wesley J. Johnson Sr.

Johnson sent a letter to the state saying that he planned to attend Wednesday's meeting, a decision that came about after a property owner approached him saying his land might be suitable for a prison. Johnson had told the man, who has remained anonymous, that he would go to the meeting if he found there was some support in town for a prison. ``Surprisingly, people were not totally, totally against it,'' he said. Ditto for New Britain, where the mayor's office has received no phone calls or e-mails opposing the idea of building a prison there.

``This is an effort to look at another course of revenue,'' said John Bairos, chief of staff to New Britain Mayor Lucian Pawlak.

And even the farming community of Lebanon, which this month rejected plans for a pitch and putt golf course proposed for the back lot of a historic home, is sending a representative to the meeting in Cheshire.

``They pay taxes, and it is an industry that does create jobs, '' Lebanon First Selectwoman Joyce R. Okonuk said. ``Right now it's simply information-gathering.''

Annual revenues exceeding $1 million can be attractive to small towns such as Lebanon, where residents - who carry the heaviest tax burden - are stingy with spending. Voters traditionally reject the annual budget three or four times before passing it, and have defeated plans for a new public works garage.

The correction department, facing criticism for sending almost 500 inmates to prison in Virginia, solicited for municipalities interested in housing new prison space. The state's inmate population has nearly doubled from 8,777 a decade ago to 17,408 this year.

There is $25 million available for expanding existing prisons, and municipalities have until Sept. 1 to file applications for new prison cells.

The upside of being a host town is employment, along with state revenue called payments in lieu of taxes, said Enfield Town Manager Scott Shanley, who has submitted a letter of interest. Enfield and Somers are each home to two prisons, and share another: the medium-security Willard-Cybulski Correctional Institution. Last year, Enfield received $1.8 million in lieu of taxes.

``But you also have to ask what strain do those facilities put on the town's infrastructure," Shanley said. "They have three shifts. What traffic do they generate?"

Residents in northern Enfield frequently complain about heavy traffic along routes to the prisons, particularly before and after shift changes.

In East Lyme, the prisons use 24 percent of the municipal water supply, so the town would want the state to drill more wells, Fraser said.

Lebanon's Okonuk wonders if prisoners would stay in town when they are released. Correction spokeswoman Christina M. Polce said that upon release, inmates without their own rides might be driven by a correction worker to the city closest to home.

Cheshire Town Manager Michael Milone was adamant Monday that his town is not interested in expanding the facility there, but will attend the meeting.

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