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| Wyatt, the goal is to fill more of jail’s cells |
| By W. Zachary Malinowski |
| Published: 04/22/2009 |
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CENTRAL FALLS — Daniel F. Cooney, chairman of the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation, is gung-ho about tackling the challenge of adding hundreds of prisoners to the Donald W. Wyatt jail and making it profitable again. The optimistic Cooney sat down for an interview in his 19th-century house on Tuesday, just hours after he and the four other members of the detention center’s board of directors unanimously fired Anthony Ventetuolo Jr. and his firm, Avcorr Management LLC, who had overseen the operations of the jail for federal detainees. “Now, I feel like we’ve got a fresh start,” Cooney said. “I think it’s going to be a golden opportunity.” The board concluded that Ventetuolo and Avcorr had defaulted on their contract by failing to work with the city corporation, the congressional delegation and the mayor’s office to reverse the jail’s financial slide in the last few months. Ventetuolo was part of the small group which more than 20 years ago developed the concept for the jail and had been involved with it until he was fired from his chief executive officer job Monday night. Cooney was critical of what he considers Ventetuolo’s imperial management style and his income — he and his firm were slated to receive more than $400,000 last year in salary and bonuses. Ventetuolo, through his lawyer, has vowed to contest the firing. In the past four months, since Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 153 immigrant detainees and canceled its contract with Wyatt, the jail has lost more than $1.6 million. The ICE action was in response to the death of a Chinese national while he was in the jail’s custody last summer. The big issue facing the jail, Cooney and his fellow board members say, is the payment schedule for the $106.3 million in bonds issued to finance the jail’s construction and 2007 expansion that added about 300 beds. The schedule shows that the jail owes the bond holders $8,415,874 this year in principal and interest. About half of that was paid in January and the next payment is due on July 15. Those twice-a-year payments continue through 2035. In the coming weeks, Cooney said, he plans to travel to Washington, D.C., with Bruce Corrigan, board vice chairman and Wayne T. Salisbury Jr., the warden, to meet with the congressional delegation, the U.S. Marshals Service, ICE and anyone else who might deliver prisoners to Central Falls. He said the board is working with Thomas A. Hanley, a Rhode Island consultant, who has been in contact with FS Capital, a prominent consulting firm in Washington. The firm, he said, has strong contacts in the Democratic Party and may be able to help the Wyatt officials. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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