http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-prisontown_bdjul06,0,2194021.story

Pontiac rallies to save its prison

Town would be devastated if facility were to close, residents say

July 5, 2008

Chicago Tribune

Joel Hood

PONTIAC, Ill.—A sweet summer warmth has settled into the old river town of Pontiac, but for weeks now it seems that all anybody wants to talk about is the dark cloud looming overhead.

"Devastating," said restaurant owner Stephanie DeLong.

"We might never recover," said the city's mayor, Scott McCoy.

It has been nearly two months since the Illinois Department of Corrections said it would try to close the aging Pontiac Correctional Center to shave about $4 million off next year's budget. And the time has done little to calm fears in Pontiac over the possibility of losing the region's second-largest employer and the widespread economic and social repercussions that would follow.

But the people of Pontiac aren't giving up without a fight. Residents have written letters to their leaders in Springfield and flooded City Hall and the local newspaper with their concerns. They've posted "Save Pontiac Prison" signs in their front yards and taped them to tree trunks and inside store windows.

About 1,000 people donned blue T-shirts with that same message for a recent community photo shoot in front of the historic courthouse downtown. They plan to send the photo to Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who, after the lengthy governmental review process has taken its course, will decide the prison's fate.

"If it happens, it will basically be the same as if a tornado went through here," McCoy said. "Except that we could recover from something like that."

The battle over the Pontiac prison underscores how profoundly small communities are affected when large employers relocate to greener pastures, or simply shut down when the economy sours.

Pontiac is a blue-collar city of 12,000 along the winding Vermilion River in rural Livingston County, about 100 miles southwest of Chicago. Since 1871 the south side of town has been anchored by a massive, redbrick-and-stone building that houses some of the state's most violent criminals.

The state has proposed shutting down the Pontiac prison and transferring as many as 1,600 inmates to the almost vacant $140 million Thomson facility near the Iowa border. The state anticipates that 544 Pontiac employees in security and administration would be asked to relocate within the prison system. The average salary of those employees is $70,000 a year, according to union data, or nearly twice the median household income for Pontiac in the last U.S. Census.

The loss of those jobs doesn't begin to calculate the overall effect, officials said. In many cases, spouses and children are also uprooted from the community, affecting school enrollment and the town's tax base. Local officials worry about what losing the area's biggest water consumer will do to their water bills and about the fate of all those companies that have food, waste and construction contracts with the prison.

Already, the possibility that the prison will close is hurting a weak housing market that has yet to recover from devastating floods in the region in January, real estate agents said. Frank Panno, a real estate agent and longtime city councilman, said he had lost a couple of home sales because prison employees have put their lives on hold. Panno and others fear the economic slump will spread to small towns outside Pontiac that are far less protected from a housing downturn, such as Saunemin, Odell and Flanagan.

"When you look at the big picture, virtually every business stands to be affected by this," said Cheri Lambert, president and chief executive officer of the Pontiac Area Chamber of Commerce.

For many, they will be personal changes. In Saunemin, about 10 miles east of Pontiac, about 10 percent of the 460 residents are Pontiac prison employees, their spouses or their children, said Mayor Mike Stoecklin. They include two school board members, volunteer firefighters and Stoecklin's assistant basketball coach at the local elementary school.

"If they leave, we stand to see about seven houses put on the market. That's 5 percent of our homes," Stoecklin said.

About 170 prison employees live in Pontiac. And most residents would say they're either related to an employee, neighbors with one, or at least friends with one. Vic Johns, who owns Pontiac Sports downtown, said he has friends who have worked at the prison for years and only recently considered that they might leave town.

The Department of Corrections says it cannot put local community concerns first when making its "very tough decisions" about prison efficiency.

"While prison facilities are often a great economic benefit to the communities they are located near, that should not be the primary reason to continue to operate a facility," Januari Smith, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, wrote in a statement last month.

After losing three battles to close prisons in 2004, including a bid to shut Pontiac, Blagojevich announced in February he intended to close a wing of Stateville Correctional Center north of Joliet. Faced with opposition from state representatives and local leaders in Will County, the Department of Corrections abruptly shifted its focus to Pontiac, which it claimed was inefficient and where many maximum-security inmates are held two to a cell.

State Sen. Dan Rutherford (R-Chenoa), whose district includes Pontiac, is leading the effort to save the Pontiac facility. In late June, he and another outspoken critic of the Corrections Department, state Sen. Christine Radogno (R-Lemont), launched a summer tour of Illinois' prison communities to seek support for a moratorium on prison closings. They're also calling on Blagojevich to create an independent panel to review the state's correctional system and map out a long-term plan to address problems.

But some worry the plan would come too late to help the people of Pontiac.

Stephanie DeLong, part owner of the popular DeLong's Casual Dining across the street from the courthouse, moved to Pontiac in 1998 because of the prison. She and her husband, Kevin, were both correctional officers. She now runs the restaurant full-time, and he is a lieutenant at the prison. They have five children, ages 7 to 15.

"My restaurant couldn't stay open if my husband was transferred a few hours away," Stephanie DeLong said. "And that means there are 27 other people I employ who would be out of a job."

Kevin DeLong said two officers have already transferred to another state prison 20 miles away in Dwight for fear that, if the Pontiac facility closed, they would have to transfer farther away.

"There were two nights recently when I couldn't sleep," Kevin DeLong said. "It's on my mind constantly. We just hope the correct decision is made."

By that, the DeLongs said, they hope the governor and the Department of Corrections understand the personal toll that prison closings take before they decide what to do about Pontiac.

"This would be absolutely devastating to so many lives," Stephanie DeLong said. "Right now, there's a lot of praying going on around here."