Single Page
Lawmakers consider mothballing Alaska prison project
Matanuska-Susitna Borough photo
Crews install a heated sidewalk at Goose Creek Correctional Center near Wasilla.
Alaska lawmakers are considering mothballing the still-unfinished $240 million prison in the Matanuska Valley because cost overruns and other factors have made it cheaper to keep housing Alaska prisoners in facilities Outside. The 1,536-bed facility is being built by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in a remote part of the Valley near Point McKenzie. The plan is for the borough to lease it back to the state. It is expected to open later this year but with just 30 prisoners in what the state has described as a test project. But Senate Finance Committee members, who grilled Department of Corrections officials last week about the prison, are now figuring out that the Goose Creek Correctional Facility will cost about $53 million a year to operate. Leaving the prisoners Outside -- about 1,000 are currently in Colorado -- would cost about $21 million a year. Simply mothballing the prison -- which means finishing up construction and paying basic maintenance including heating costs to keep the pipes from freezing -- comes in at about $20 million a year, including $17.8 million in debt service on construction costs. Some senators suggested at Thursday's committee hearing that it appears the facility has become more of an economic development project for the borough at state taxpayer's expense. It is the state that is paying for roads and utilities to an area so remote that some have described the prison project as creating a small town where once there was nothing. No utilities existed in the area and the state loan agency had to sell $20 million in bonds so a local utility company could put in water and sewer. The prison is the only customer, so the state will be the only entity repaying that debt until other businesses or facilities move to the area, which wouldn't be for many years, the committee was told last week. State officials tried to explain that the financing arrangement and other financial issues are complicated. "You call it complicated, I call it fandangled," Finance Committee co-chair Sen. Lyman Hoffman shot back. Assistant attorney general Jeff Stark, who worked with corrections on the project, said the project costs were higher because there were no utilities. Normally, he said, a facility would hook up to existing utilities. "That's the point," Hoffman said. "The project should have been built closer to where the utilities are." He is one of the biggest critics of the project, in large part because he believes state corrections officials went way beyond the intent of legislation he co-sponsored in 2004 that was aimed at easing prison and jail overcrowding throughout the state while returning Alaska prisoners home. The committee learned Thursday that, in the seven years since Senate Bill 65 was adopted, no improvements have been made to the prison in Bethel, one of the highest crime areas in the state. Expansions planned in Fairbanks, Seward, Dillingham and Kodiak also were scaled back or never carried out, according to corrections officials. Hoffman, who is from Bethel, was clearly furious. He pointed to SB 65 which included clear spending limits and detailed per-bed costs that the state was supposed to stick to. Leslie Houston, director of administrative services for the department, agreed that the costs set out in the bill were exceeded. "So basically you broke the law," Hoffman stated flatly. "I won't say we broke the law, sir," Houston replied. "But I will say from (when) the bill was passed 'til ground was broken at Goose Creek, the economy and so many things changed in that time." Hoffman is not the only Finance Committee member who is unhappy with how the state's prison plans have turned out. Co-chair Sen. Bert Stedman indicated he and other members had basically forced the department to come to the table and lay out what has happened since SB 65 was passed. "I wasn't expecting this to be pretty," Stedman said at the end of the hearing. He and other committee members have asked for documentation and backup material to show why decisions were made over the past eight years, starting with turning the project over to the Mat-Su Borough and why SB 65's requirements were not followed.
Emailed to legislature Senator Stedman, thank you for lighting a candle in the darkness of the Alaska legislature on going wasteful spending. May I be of some service? You do not have to heat the prison. Do the same thing we do with RVs, houses and commercial buildings when we winterize them. Remove all of the water and what water you cannot remove, like toilet bowls, pour alcohol in them. Then just shut off the heat. You do not have to finish the build and if you do not finish the building like wiring then there is nothing to steal. Next wall in the prison openings with concrete and/ or steel then it would take a jack hammer to get in. Put up sign saying that build is unfinished and just a concrete shell thus that there is nothing of value to steal and then you do not need guards. No heat, no guards now where is the cost? Besides paying for shutting down the remaining construction and walling off the openings. If any legislator thinks that the State is going get that prison constructed for $158 a bed then the Parnell /TransCanada Alcan Gasline is for real and the Kings weavers of the magic invisible golden cloth really could weave magic invisible golden cloth. I told the legislature so!!! But as usual the legislature thought they could throw money at it and somehow it would all work out. I told the legislature it would cost at least $175 a bed because the Weimar's Whittier jail bed cost was $148 a bed and they started with an existing building. Weimar's jail was going to cost the State an extra billion dollars over 30 years above what it would have cost to house prisoners in the S48. In the Weimar fiasco one legislator did take an active part in killing the Whittier jail but if I remember correctly he did not like Weimar anyway. Weimar had already screwed the residents of Big Delta with phony baloney prison plan. Goose Bay was just some other legislators pork so nobody would raise a question. Like Harry Crawford’s pork when Crawford shilled for Conoco/ Marathon / Enstar and spear headed Chakachamna Hydro study to kill Susitna . Harry knew that Chakachamna was not feasible but it would kill Susitna for Conoco/ Marathon/ Enstar and Conoco/Marathon/Enstar wanted Susitna delayed or killed because a full Susitna, both Watana and Devil Canyon would produce just enough power to back out all of the gas power generation in the Railbelt and Conoco/Marathon / Enstar would lose one half of their gas sales if Susitna was constructed. Conoco/Marathon/ Enstar stood to lose hundreds millions if Susitna was constructed. Senator Ellis, you were Weimar's friend, I do not remember you raising any questions about Weimar’s prison when Weimar was going screw the State of Alaska out of billion dollars and Weimar had already screwed Big Delta . Weimar is now in jail in Florida for child molestation. Which brings me to the Ellis/ Thomas/ Parnell 1/2 Watana Dam, and again another somebody else’s Pork, which is going to cost the State an extra ten year delay and an additional billion engineering and EIS and another extra billion to go from 1/2 Watana to full Watana Dam over and above would what it would cost to construct a full Watana Dam from the beginning which will kill Susitna. Now guess who benefits from a delayed Susitna hydro ? Our old friends Conoco/Marathon / Enstar. While Susitna is delayed Conoco/Marathon/ Enstar can keep the ½ of their gas sales which are used for power generation. The extra cost of just constructing a one half Watana is outline in $158 million dollar EIS. Remember FERC has already had the Watana Dam, the Devil Canyon Dam, the integrated Susitna Hydroelectric Project before FERC and as part of FERC’s duties consideration was given to a 1/2 Watana Dam and FERC rejected the ½ Watana for the full Watana Dam. Now the legislature is being asked to commit to spending a extra Billion dollars so the AEA/APA who has never constructed anything without screwing it up and who hired the most incompetent engineering firm in Alaska, HDR, to undertake the 1/2 Watana . Notice how the AEA has recently keep HDR out of sight in the Watana Dam hearings after I pointed out to legislature HDR was the most incompetent engineering firm in Alaska. Remember the AEA/ APA , spear headed by Eric Yould, is one of the ones that encouraged the legislature to fund the study Chakachamna knowing that Chakachamna was on the Castel Mountain earthquake fault and had a number of other unsolvable issues. They knew Chakachamna had been studied in the late 1950s and Chakachamna was found not to be feasible. When I asked you legislators to have one of your staff pick up phone and call the ARLIS library in the UAA library and ask about the 1961 and 1962 Chakachamna reports none of you did. Why not just give the Watana Dam and the Susitna Hydroelectric Project back the Alaska Army Corps of Engineers who already had FREC approval and the full Watana Dam was under design and save the State of Alaska and the Railbelt power consumers a ten year delay and two billion dollars. That extra $2 billion will be $4 billion when interest is added in which will kill Susitna OMG, they couldn't figure the finances out before starting this project? What an epic boondoggle. The State will pay $20 million a year for it mothball, with $17 million in debt service, and there is nothing received for this other than deterioration to a building! This ranks right in there with the Delta Barley project for a waste of State money. Somebody has to be accountable for this travesty. If a serious number of people don't lose their job over this then we can just expect more of this kind of behavior. Arrogant illegality without consequences. Oh well...it's just our burgeoning oil revenues at work. I'm glad to see this article. Here's another example of spending state money on a project that was not thought out and lacked sufficient oversite. Once again we're burdened with overruns, debt, and major difficulties in pulling the plug. I would like to see some accountability take place for this project and checks put into place for future projects.Is this a strictly government money problem? Our legistators need to find a solution. |
Comments