Federal BOP Touring Standish
City leaders rolled out the welcome wagon today for officials from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, who are considering buying a shuttered local state prison to house federal inmates. The Standish Max Correctional Facility, which the state of Michigan closed last October in a budget-cutting move, was once considered as a home for prisoners currently housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Those plans were dropped, but federal official are considering using the former state facility as a standard federal prison. News and additional photos in the Detroit Free Press.
About 350 people worked at the facility when the state ran it, though it’s unclear how many people would be needed to operate it as a federal prison.
City leaders, state prison officials and Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, led federal officials on a tour of the facility this morning, then drove them into town for a private lunch at a local golf club.
Along the route into town, a dozen or so freshly printed campaign-style yard signs read “Federal Bureau of Prisons — Welcome to Standish.”
“It was great to see the signs out there,” Stupak told reporters this afternoon outside the prison’s administration building. “It’s very early in the process, but right now everything looks very positive. I’m optimistic it will happen.”
Stupak noted that no recommendation had yet been made. Federal prison officials plan to meet privately with property owners surrounding the prison Wednesday to discuss what comes next.
Patricia Caruso, director of the Michigan Department of Corrections, said she hopes the federal officials will pursue the next step, which would be an environmental assessment of the property. She said the state’s inmate population has dropped from more than 50,000 to about 44,000, and the property is no longer needed. She said she can’t see any way the state would reopen the facility.
“We have no intention of doing that,” she said.
Some former workers at the facility protested outside the prison during the day, arguing that the state will need the facility again and that selling it now would be foolish.
“Is the sale of this going to balance Michigan’s budget?” asked Paul Piche, 53, of Omer, who has worked in state prisons for 25 years.
When the prison closed last year, Piche was transferred to another state prison in St. Louis, Mich., about 90 minutes away. He and 15 coworkers now ride to work together in a van, spending three hours a day on the road. Others in town are worried about the possible sale, too.
“My contention is that the prison will open sooner as a state facility than as a federal one,” said Dave Munson, a local bar owner.
He said he’d like to wait until a new governor comes in and reviews corrections policy before selling the property. But city leaders are convinced the facility’s days as a state prison are done.
“The state’s not going to open that back up,” said Clark Sanford, a longtime Standish city councilman who backs the plan. “What do you want to do, leave it empty?”
Standish city leaders say the entire community stands to benefit if the prison is reopened as a federal facility. Workers would spend money in the local community and the federal government would start paying for water and sewer at the prison. Local residents were socked with a 40% increase in water and sewer bills when the prison, the system’s largest user, closed and usage dropped off dramatically.
“If it happens, this will be a very positive thing,” said Mayor Mark Winslow.
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