A modest proposal for where to house Gitmo detainees

Illinois has given America some big names over the years.

Abe Lincoln, Jack Ruby, Barack Obama and Jenny McCarthy.

And some big-time inventions.

The department store, railroad sleeper cars, the Ferris wheel and barbed wire.

Now it's time to turn over something else to the feds: the Thomson Prison.

As President Obama fights to carry out his campaign promise to close down the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison camp in Cuba, he has the perfect place to relocate those detainees who are too dangerous to be freed. It's right here in his home state, but far enough from the Hyde Park White House that he sometimes visits.

The Thomson Correctional Center is located in western Illinois and was completed in 2001 at a cost of $140 million. The maximum-security wing has never opened due the normal bureaucratic bungling, stalling and wastefulness that we have all allowed to fester in state government.

In other words: the brand new, high-tech, secure-as-they-come prison is VACANT. In Carroll County, the hundreds of full-time jobs and collateral economic benefits that accompany a fully-operational state prison have never been seen.

"We get our hopes up and then something hits the fan" says Jerry Hebeler, the president of the Thomson village board. Of course, Hebeler said the word "something" but he meant something else.

Surprisingly, Mr. Hebeler would welcome the terrorist prisoners to his town's prison if only to jump start the place. "They can't be any worse than any murderer" he told me. "It's maximum security. It's for that."

Hebeler, who goes by "Duke" because he used a Duke Snyder baseball bat as a kid and the name stuck with him, is retired from DuPont Corp. He still works as a high school sports referee and has the deep, raspy voice that is required if a person is to be called Duke.

He is also all jacked up about the prison in his small town that just sits there, empty as a beer keg at Buck's Barn come closing time.

"I ain't heard from nobody about it. Not even my representatives. And I've been in office 2½ years," says Hebeler, 63, who was just re-elected to a full four-year term by a vote of 130-47. By Thomson standards, that is a landslide.

"We were told the feds might come in" he says. But that was several years ago, before Obama was elected president and before the terrorist prisoners became available.

"We're becomin' a ghost town" Hebeler says with a disgusted sigh.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn hasn't done anything to help. Upon taking office when Gov. Rod Blagojevich was thrown out, Quinn reversed Blagojevich's plan to close the state prison in Pontiac and transfer 1600 prisoners to Thomson.

Quinn's budget does not include any funding to open the Thomson maximum-security wing.

Even if Gov. Quinn offered up a couple hundred cells at the Thomson Prison and Pres. Obama took him up on his generosity, the welcome wagon might not be out for Guantanamo transferees.

"I know there would be great opposition to this from some in the community, but have no idea the stance that would be taken by the majority" says Julie Hansen who represents the Thomson Chamber of Commerce.

The minimum security wing currently has about 130 prisoners and 75 employees, according to state records. Two hundred new corrections officers from the Thomson area were hired and trained to work in the maximum security wing but since it has never opened they had to agree to work at other facilities or quit.

Town President Duke Hebeler can barely contain his hostility toward the elected state officials who have allowed this to happen - even though he doesn't even know precisely who to blame.

"I can't go in and lock up all of them, as much as I'd like," he says with each word bubbling from his gut. "I don't believe any of 'em no more."

Neither does the local newspaper.

In an editorial this month, the publisher of the Prairie Advocate wrote: "Nobody knows what's going to happen with the Thomson Correctional Center. We do know that, as of today, the state of Illinois is not planning to open TCC. The Minimum Security Wing of the 8-year-old facility is the only section of the prison that has been utilized, and to date, even that will be minimally funded. Our new Governor, Pat Quinn, has initially budgeted a minimal $9 million just to keep an eye on it and make sure no more ceilings collapse."

"Maybe we will "suggest" that the $61 million in the IDOC budget for OVERTIME PAY - yes, $61 million - should be reapportioned to fully open TCC. Less than $50 million will get the ball rolling at Thomson. That still leaves over $11 million for OT."

It would be a win-win-win-win if the feds were to just take over the place and move in those Guantanamo terrorists. Obama would win, Quinn would win, Thomson employees would win and Duke Hebeler would win.

If any of the al-Qaida-types were to escape, they probably wouldn't get far.

Lots of the local folk are hunters - and in those parts, people who hate America are always in season.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com