The website has a couple of areas worth visiting. The "history" of Camp Gabriels is very interesting. Also, if you want to keep up with news coverage of the proposed closing, clicking on the "Archive" will provide the necessary links.
The closing of Camp Gabriels and other prisons is good news. It means fewer people are being sentenced to prison and I don't see how anyone cannot be happy with that. It's very expensive to keep a person in jail or prison. Unfortunately our area has come to count on the prison industry for well paying jobs. This is in no way good news for the local economy. I understand what it means to lose a job that pays a good salary.
However, at least one area person was willing to risk a letter to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise which more or less supports closing of the prison. Here is the letter:
The crime rate is down in New York state. As a result, there are fewer prisoners and lots of vacant space in correction facilities, meaning some of the facilities need closing. This kind of news is welcomed in most areas of the world and thought very good.It's pretty hard to disagree with the logic of this letter. Everyday you hear local people complaining about taxes. Taxes are too high, taxes need to be cut. But when it comes time to actually cut taxes you often hear a different tune - especially when it directly affects you. One thing I notice is that often times the people complaining the loudest about high taxes are retired State employees.
In addition, the state faces a huge financial deficit, and according to its politicians and most of its citizens, it needs to curb unnecessary spending.
In response, the governor of New York, the most heavily taxed state in the nation* and the state with the most state employees per capita in the nation*, intends to close down four minimum-security prisons that are half-full, one of which is a few miles from Saranac Lake, that being Camp Gabriels, which would all sound logical to most anyone.
The current employees at this facility — all unionized — have either “bumping” rights into seven other correction facilities within an hour’s drive from Camp Gabriels or will be given preference for openings in “non-competitive” categories of employment, which still sounds good to anyone with a heart for working people.
Yet, with all of the good news, we hear: 1. griping from a recently “retired” CO in Vermontville, with a wife working at Camp Gabriels (already “vested” in the retirement system), that she may have to travel a few more miles for some more state employment; 2. an impotent state senator (majority member) and an even more impotent assemblyperson (minority member) “calling for reconsideration”; 3. petitions at local convenience stores demanding a decision-reversal by the governor without saying why Gabriels should stay, other than saying it’s somehow “vital.”
These responses do not make any sense. The facilities should be closed and should have been closed long ago. (Just ask any CO for their honest opinion on that subject.)
And anyone who says Franklin County is somehow “short-changed” in the decision-making just doesn’t have their facts straight, as the state built three other correctional facilities in the county in the last 20 years: Bare Hill, Franklin and Chateaugay — far beyond what our population and/or voting power deserved.
Further, jobs come and go all the time in the private sector. A state employee commuting a few more miles to keep their nose in the trough doesn’t bring a tear to my eye.
Our politicians and community leaders should quit whining, as it will not and should not do any good, and do something worthwhile such as seizing this opportunity, just as the leaders in Plattsburgh did when its air base closed, and go after — with a vengeance — a host of private-sector jobs that fit with the community and may make use of the Gabriels facility. Any effort less than that and without the necessary logical foundation deserves just what it will obtain: nothing.
3 comments:
Closings like this always put people in an uproar.
1.Crime is down-Good.
2.Shut down sites-Good and Bad
3.Save tax money-Good
4.Local towns with stores like Stewarts, Cumberland Farms loose money when officers stop for sandwiches, coffee, gas, before and after work.-Bad
Then there are the officers who have nice jobs at places like Mt. McGregor who don't want to take a job and drive to Washington or Great Meadow-Reasonable
It is never easy.
I'm writing from a big prison town - Auburn in Cayuga County. My observation and comment are as much about here in rural Cayuga County as the Adirondacks.
I'm speaking from the perspective of what is best for society - which is also best for the prisoners' and their families. Prisons in remote locations really work against rehabilitation and a successful reentry into normal life after getting out. It's so difficult for families to make personal visits and to keep family ties strong when the prisons are so far away.
Well, said. Inmates should have access to their families. On the othr hand, if I had to be in a minimum security work camp, I'd definitely choose Camp Gabriels and the great outdoors.
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