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| Protesters Sound Off About Ohio Prison Closing |
| By Toledo Blade/Associated Press |
| Published: 03/18/2003 |
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Refusing to give up on what they've been told is a foregone conclusion, 150 Allen County residents weathered frigid temperatures outside the Statehouse on February 24to protest the closing of Lima Correctional Institution. 'The initials LCI do not mean 'Lost Cause Immediately,'' Ed Kink, county recorder, told employees of the medium-security prison and their families. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction plans to close Lima, a former prison for the criminally insane, to save $25 million a year. The prison, portions of which date to 1908, employs 490. The state has spent $11 million on renovations in the past two years at Lima prison. That includes $5 million in work still under way. 'You don't sink more and more money into a facility you're going to close,' said Craig Bradford, who represents officers at the prison for the state employees' union. Gov. Bob Taft last month ordered the lockup closed. Prisons director Reginald Wilkinson said the state would have to close two other prisons to equal one as big as Lima, which has an annual operating budget of $36.3 million. The shutdown will leave the state with 32 prisons. The closing is in response to the governor's budget proposal for the next two years. The prison's population has dropped from 1,549 to 1,357 since the end of January. 'The target date [for closure] is July 1, 2003,' said Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokesman Andrea Dean. 'We've started moving inmates out. There will be 60 more moved out this week.' While taking verbal swings at Governor Taft and DRC Director Wilkinson, the protesters saved particular venom for state Sen. Lynn Wachtmann (R., Napoleon), whose northwestern district borders Allen. They argued Mr. Wachtmann betrayed them when he supported Senate action to shelve an amendment that would have subjected the prison closing to a review process. The amendment died by a single vote. Mr. Wachtmann could not be reached for comment. 'He's a real flash point with his votes because he represents, symbolically at least, those legislators who are trying to close LCI,' said Dennis Shreefer, a Lima radio talk-show host who led the protest. The Republican-controlled House added the language to a separate bill designed to address a projected $720 million shortfall in the current fiscal year. The Senate struck the language last week before sending the bill back. The House will decide as early as today whether to accept those changes or force a conference committee to work out a compromise between the two sides. Displaced Lima employees may 'bump' employees with lesser seniority at other state prisons, including the medium-security Allen County Correctional Institution and Oakwood psychiatric prison on the same campus. They could also bump as many as 136 employees of Toledo Correctional Institute in North Toledo. 'Hopefully, I've got a place to go,' said John Geiger, a corrections officer with Lima Correctional. 'I've been there two years and a month, and it doesn't look good.' Ken Reed of Lima, a 21-year employee of the prison, is confident he will have a job when the dust settles. 'If it closes, I'll have to go to a different institution there on the same grounds, but, by the same token, that's going to put somebody else out of work and put them out of town,' he said. While criticizing Mr. Wachtmann, the protesters praised their local senator, Jim Jordan (R., Urbana), though he voted for the final Senate version of the bill after the facilities language had been deleted. Mr. Jordan adamantly has opposed Mr. Taft's pitch for higher taxes, but there were those in the crowd yesterday willing to use the words tax increase. 'If it'll help keep the prison open, that is the answer,' said Mr. Geiger. |
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