Herbert tours state prison to weigh rebuild in Draper

Herbert tours state prison to weigh rebuild in Draper

(Kristin Murphy/Deseret News)


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SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Gary Herbert took a four-hour tour of the Utah State Prison on Tuesday to see firsthand the pluses and minuses of rebuilding on the Draper site rather than relocating the 4,000-bed facility.

Utah Department of Corrections Executive Director Roland Cook said the visit was the governor's idea.

"He took it upon himself to come out and look at the land, look at the buildings, look at our operations and get it from a corrections perspective, not necessarily from a consultant or from the Legislature," Cook said.

The Legislature's Prison Relocation Commission is expected to make a recommendation by Oct. 1 to move the prison to one of four sites identified earlier this year.

There is significant opposition to all of the sites, located in Salt Lake City west of Salt Lake City International Airport; in Eagle Mountain and Fairfield in Utah County; and in Grantsville, Tooele County.

That's led to increasing pressure to look at keeping the prison at Point of the Mountain. The commission's consultants recently concluded the problems associated with building on the nearly 700 acres were "insurmountable."


"We had corrections employees tell us about the safety and security concerns that would come from operating a prison as both a construction site and as a place to house criminals." Jon Cox, Gov. Herbert's spokesma

But after Tuesday's tour, the governor's spokesman, Jon Cox, said Herbert still hasn't made up his mind.

"The time will come for that," Cox said.

He said the governor continues to believe that if there is a better place to locate the prison than Draper, it should be moved, but if not, keeping it there should be reconsidered.

Cox said the governor saw not just the "major deterioration of buildings and basic infrastructure that has taken place " at the prison, but also how much undeveloped land is available.

Still, Cox said, the corrections staff raised concerns about keeping the prison there.

"We had corrections employees tell us about the safety and security concerns that would come from operating a prison as both a construction site and as a place to house criminals," he said.

Cook said both the positives and negatives associated with rebuilding in Draper were shared with the governor.

Among the pluses of staying put discussed were keeping the commute the same for prison employees, the department head said. But there apparently is a longer list of minuses.

Utah State Prison in Draper on Thursday, June 11, 2015. Image: Kristin Murphy
Utah State Prison in Draper on Thursday, June 11, 2015. Image: Kristin Murphy

Topping that list for some is the fear lawmakers will lose interest in funding a new prison if a move isn't made to free up the property located along Utah's "Silicon Slopes" high-tech corridor for development.

The governor has said before that the relocation decision should be driven by the desire to improve the prison, not by the economic development potential of the Draper site.

"It isn't just that we wouldn't get the facilities that we would need," Cook said. "It would be very, very difficult to build here. It would take a lot longer and be more expensive."

He said the hope is that the project will move forward quickly.

"If you get land and you're able to get it open in three years or so," then Cook said the state will end up with a "complete, organized, properly run and operated facility.

But, he said, "if we continue to try to build one building at a time on this land, it's going to be exactly what we've already got, and that's a hodgepodge of disorganization."

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Even so, Cook, a nonvoting member of the commission, wasn't ready to say the prison should move, either.

"I stay neutral on that," he said. "I work for the governor. I want to make sure I don't get out in front of him. He's the one that makes the final decision. If it's decided we stay here, well then, we're going to do the very best we can."

Cox said the governor last took a tour of the prison in the fall of 2014. He said Tuesday's visit made it clear the facility is not conducive to the state's new criminal justice reform efforts "to get away from just warehousing inmates."

That's an issue that can't wait, Cox said.

"Even a lot of folks who have opposed this effort from the start, I think, would also acknowledge that in its current state, the prison is in need of signficant repair," the governor's spokesman said. "I believe we have found consensus at least on that."

Sen. Jerry Stevenson, the commission's co-chairman, said he and the governor talked several weeks ago about the need to consider building a new prison on the Draper site.

"He said there were people who were concerned we didn't look at Draper," the Layton Republican said. "He just said we ought to make sure we reviewed the Draper property. We were already in the process of that."

Stevenson said the consultants were already looking at the site because of the "public hype." He said he believes the governor is "being sensitive to those out there who are discussing this."

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