Pontiac fights long odds to save prison, jobs

PONTIAC, Ill. _ When folks here heard the governor wanted to close the 137-year-old prison, sucking hundreds of jobs from the area, they mobilized in a way that only small towns can.

They held rallies. There was a parade and a big photo shoot. Streets were lined with blue-and-white "Save Our Prison" signs and residents were outfitted in T-shirts to match.

The roughly 12,000 people here find themselves in a struggle for their economic lives as they try to talk Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich out of closing the town's second-largest employer to help fill a $700 million hole in the state budget. And the fight is as economic as it is political: The governor has hinted that, if state legislators support his capital-spending plan, the prison might be saved.

It's not just the 570 jobs that would leave this central Illinois town that worries Mayor Scott McCoy. It's also the lost revenues for the city, construction firms, restaurants and other businesses. One study shows the area would lose more than $50 million a year.

Plus, most prison employees would likely follow the jobs, taking with them spouses who are teachers, nurses and other professionals.

"These are our coaches, these are our PTO members," McCoy said. "Almost every one of them will transfer to somewhere else.

"I feel so bad for these families that are going to be faced with these kinds of decisions. What do you do?"

Prison officials say closing Pontiac will save the state $8.5 million dollars over the next two years, and the state says it needs that money.

"I hate closing Pontiac," Illinois Department of Corrections Director Roger Walker told more than a thousand people at a public hearing Wednesday on the prison-closure plan. But he left no doubt where he stands: "The best available option for the department at this time is to close Pontiac."

The state, besides saving money, needs to close the prison so it can fully open another one, 150 miles northwest in Thomson. That prison, in a more rural area, is new and better-designed, Walker said. But it has sat all but idle since it was built in 2001 because Illinois can't afford to open it.

Pontiac's prison, about 100 miles southwest of Chicago, would close in January.

The maximum-security facility, a complex of mostly red-brick and stone buildings, is in an odd place. Tucked into the edge of a middle-class neighborhood, a narrow street, high fences and layers of razor wire separate it from a park and tennis courts.

Guards say the prison houses the worst of the worst. It used to be known as the Thunderdome, a place where you watched your back at all times. In 1978, three guards died here during a prison riot. Also Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassin, James Earl Ray spent time there in the '50s for armed robbery.

It opened in 1871 as a reform school outside town. Over time Pontiac grew toward the prison, and grew comfortable with it.

"Pontiac and this state have had a wonderful partnership for more than 130 years," said McCoy, who was raised in a house just across the street from the prison.

In early May, word trickled through town that the center was on the budgetary block.

Stephanie DeLong, whose husband Kevin is a lieutenant and 19-year veteran at the facility, heard the news from a local politician who stopped in her downtown restaurant.

DeLong's Casual Dining employs 20 people and if the prison closes, the DeLongs and their five children are among those likely to leave.

Five years ago the DeLongs built a house -- two stories, four bedrooms and a fireplace on a little land.

"I look around and see everything that we do have," Stephanie DeLong said. "You know, we've worked hard the last 20 years. How would we ever start over?"

McCoy points at a trail of losses through Pontiac and dozens nearby towns if the prison closes:

-- About a quarter of the town's firefighters also work at the prison.

-- The city's waste water treatment plant, would lose about a quarter of its revenue -- $300,000 a year -- because the prison is one of its biggest customers. That would likely cause rates to rise.

-- Construction businesses, like McCoy's father's, that do a lot of work at the facility would likely cut back their payrolls.

-- And, if many prison employees left town, their homes would probably hit an already poor real estate market in one big lump.

The study on the local impact, conducted by Western Illinois University and commissioned by the Department of Corrections, pegged the loss at $54.4 million a year. That's out of a local economy that McCoy estimates at hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the three months since Blagojevich said he wants to close the prison, the town has done what it could -- held those rallies and written hundreds of letters to any lawmaker who might listen.

But the decision is the governor's, and people here are convinced it has more to do with politics than money.

Blagojevich decided to close Pontiac's prison rather than a facility in Joliet only after Joliet Democratic Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi voted "present" on a move to put a recall measure aimed at the governor on the November ballot. GOP lawmakers that represent Pontiac supported it.

And earlier this month, Blagojevich hinted he might not close the prison if legislators back his capital spending plan. The legislation, which would finance construction of roads, buildings and schools, has been stalled for months in a feud between Blagojevich and fellow Democrat, House Speaker Michael Madigan.

"It's not politics; it's economics," Blagojevich spokesman Brian Williamsen insists. "The funding has to be in place."

McCoy doesn't buy it.

"I don't look at what (Blagojevich) says any more, I look at what he does," the mayor said. "The only thing that can save the prison right now is when the guy signs the piece of paper that says it's no longer going to close."