MAKING THE CASE

It has been five years since consultants hired to evaluate Maine’s antiquated and inordinately expensive prison system recommended that six of the state’s eight adult prisons be closed, including the Downeast Correctional Facility in Washington County. Last week, Gov. King proposed a $117.9 million bond package that includes $13.9 million for a new prison in Washington County.

What happened in between is a study in how, through state government neglect, Washington County came to be synonymous with poverty and unemployment. It also offers a lesson in how, through organized action, that unfortunate correlation can be broken.

Following the consultant’s report of June 1997, a task force appointed by the governor reviewed the study and accepted it without change. The task force included no representation from Washington County – or from north of Augusta, for that matter – and the decision to consolidate Maine’s prison system into two southern Maine facilities was made without dissent.

The dissent came immediately afterward. Washington County’s community leaders, incensed that a decision of such importance statewide was made with such a narrow view and appalled by the prospect of losing 70 steady jobs in a region where every steady job counts, cried foul.

They did more than cry, however. They banded together, formed the Down East Correctional Facility Retention Committee and lobbied to get the review process reopened, this time with representation. Then they got Gov. King to pledge his support for a new prison in Washington County if locals could make a strong enough case for it.

Then they made the case. DCF, despite having the building the consultants deemed the most inadequate of the eight, was the system’s most efficient operation with the lowest staff turnover rate. The standard practice in other states of siting of prisons in economically depressed areas was ignored in the consultant’s report. The minimum-security DCF prisoners saved hard-pressed local taxpayers some $3.5 million a year performing community service projects. When the state first proposed converting a closed Air Force radar station at Bucks Harbor into a prison facility back in 1985, strong local opposition was overcome by the job-creation argument. Machias even offered land at the town’s industrial park for the new facility. Although it remains troubling that any part of Maine would have to make a case for basic fairness, Gov. King has kept his word, first by stating his support for a new DCF and now by including it in his bond package.

That’s praiseworthy, but the real credit goes to the Washington County community leaders who made this long and strenuous effort first to be heard and then to make the most of the opportunity. While they’re on a roll, perhaps they’ll break state government of the nasty habit that made it necessary.