Grantsville Mayor Brent Marshall didn’t get the answer he wanted to hear after two hours of listening to a state legislative commission that met at the state capitol on Wednesday morning.
He wanted to know if Grantsville was on the list of final spots for a potential new state prison.
Near the close of the state prison relocation commission meeting, co-chair Rep. Brad Wilson (R-Kaysville) announced that the commission wouldn’t disclose its top four final picks for prison relocation for at least another week.
“We are in the process of meeting with the leaders in the prospective communities and want to complete that process before we announce the locations,” he said. “We expect to have that completed within a week.”
Marshall was not happy.
“I wish they would just tell us,” he said. “Grantsville doesn’t want the prison and we would like to know for sure that we aren’t on the list.”
Last week, prison relocation commission co-chairman Sen. Jerry Stevenson (R-Layton) confirmed that the committee had dropped two undisclosed potential prison sites in Tooele County from the list.
“They weren’t bad sites,” he said. “But when you add an additional 30 miles of travel onto them, it drives up the overall costs of operation.”
The Tooele County sites were also lacking in available utility infrastructure, he added.
However, later last week, amidst Salt Lake County-based media reports that Saratoga Springs had been dropped from the list of finalists, rumors started that at least one of the Tooele County sites had been picked back up as a finalist.
“I fielded a lot of angry phone calls from Grantsville citizens that don’t want the prison in our community,” Marshall said. “They don’t want it, I don’t want it, and the city council doesn’t want it.”
Marshall showed up at the Wednesday morning meeting hoping to find out once and for all if Tooele County, especially Grantsville, was on the final list of sites or not.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “They’ve made their decision. Why can’t they just tell us and get it over with?”
The announcements last week that Saratoga Springs was off the list may have been premature, according to Wilson.
“There have been a lot of reports in the media,” he said. “I’ve read some things that are true and some that are not.”
Bob Nardi, with MGT of America, the Tallahassee, Florida-based criminal justice and public safety consulting firm hired by the commission to help with site selection and prison planning, reported that the commission investigated 26 potential sites. Some were dropped quickly because they did not meet the minimum criteria while others were examined more closely, he said.
The commission used the criteria they approved in a September meeting to assign points to potential sites and then selected four finalists, according to Nardi.
The criteria awarded 35 potential points for proximity to staff, visitors, volunteers, advanced medical treatment and the legal system; fifteen points each for infrastructure, environmental issues and community support; and 10 points each for community services and development costs. The total possible points was 100.
After community leaders from the four final locations have been notified, the commission will start the process of gathering public input from the communities, said Nardi.
“It is out our plan to have a site recommendation ready for the 2015 legislative session,” he said.