Developers, tribe don’t have answers on detention facility

The Sahuarita Sun

Key questions have gone unanswered about a detention facility proposed north of Sahuarita on Tohono O’odham land, but one answer is clear: The tribe has no intention of moving it.

Mayor Lynne Skelton and Town Manager Jim Stahle met May 7 with San Xavier District chairman Austin Nunez and business backers working with the tribe to build the facility.

Stahle said Nunez, James M. Parkey of Corplan Corrections of Argyle, Texas, and engineer Chris Cuny of FC Cuny Corp. of Heath, Texas, “refused to answer” when asked about the level of detainees to be housed at the center. “They said they did have contracts (with federal agencies) but were not at liberty to say who,” he said.

However, Parkey and Cuny told reporters Monday that there are no signed contracts because that would be a violation of federal bidding procedures since the facility is not built.

Nunez, Parkey and Cuny took reporters on a tour of the site and said the facility is intended to house illegal immigrants and “not violent criminals,” though it is being built to maximum-security standards. Pressed by reporters, they acknowledged that any level of offender could conceivably be housed in the facility two-thirds of a mile north of Rancho Sahuarita.

Skelton said the question was raised as to whether the intended suppliers of inmates, the U.S. Marshal Service and Border Patrol, “really need beds.” State Rep. Frank Antenori said last month that he has contacted several federal agencies and none said they had a need for beds.

Detention facility developers said Monday they have built several centers but acknowledged one, in Hardin, Mont., has been empty for about a year. Officials at the Two Rivers Regional Detention Facility, told National Public Radio last week that they want to house terrorism suspects from the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The town’s meeting included Richard A. Reyes II of the Innovative Government Strategies consulting firm in Boerne, Texas, but did not include a representative from the proposed operator, Community Education Centers of West Caldwell, N.J.

When town officials asked if a different location would be considered, Stahle said, “the folks from Texas answered no. They had been working on it for three years and the financing would go away and the project would be over if they entertained the idea of a different location.”

“The chairman confirmed it’s too late to consider an alternative,” he said. “How long ago was too late?”

The town council has been slow to criticize the Nation on the facility, hoping face-to-face meetings would help diminish the adverse impact on thousands of residents nearby. But Nunez on Monday acknowledged the town didn’t walk away with anything after its May 7 meeting.

Three people spoke out against the facility at Monday’s council meeting, including Dewey Cooper, who is part of an effort that collected more than 1,500 signatures opposing the facility. Cooper cited a 1996 study that indicated prisons don’t help small-town economies.

Rancho Sahuarita liaison Tom Murphy called on the town officially to oppose the location. That seemed to prompt a council motion calling for staff to draw up a resolution opposing the location of the center for the May 26 Town Council meeting, which is being held a day late because of Memorial Day. Skelton said her opposition is to the location, not the efforts by the San Xavier District to seek economic development. The motion also directed staff to send out a summary of the May 7 meeting and to invite state and federal representatives to the May 26 meeting. Council member Scott Downs was absent Monday.

Nunez and the district’s business partners plan to hold a public meeting May 20 to make a presentation about the facility. He wants to hold the meeting at the San Xavier community center; Skelton wants a more convenient location, such as Desert Diamond Casino.

Nunez scratched an earlier plan to hold a May 18 public meeting in Sahuarita. Skelton, who last week said the town had dropped the ball by not informing residents of the possibility of such a facility, said after the council meeting she had heard from Nunez on Oct. 27 that the tribe “was thinking of locating a detention center some place in the southeast part of the District” but was not given a specific location or a timeline. She said she mentioned this after a Town Council meeting to council member Marty Moreno and to Murphy.

Murphy said that he could not recall having been given that information, but asked Moreno, who said she did recall him being present for the brief conversation.

Skelton said town staff pursued the lead, but could not come up with anything in writing from the District, and that the information gathered by Town Economic Director Kathy Ward, which went to all Town Council members in a Nov. 12 e-mail outlining the proposal, was based on telephone conversations with District staff and not any documents.

In other developments, the council extended Stahle’s contract for a year; approved a National League of Cities drug plan that could enable residents to save about 20 percent on prescription drugs, possibly by early June, and approved borrowing $6.7 million from a state agency to continue expansion of the wastewater treatment plant.

The council voted, 6-0, to approve the plan for a drug card that would provide discounts. Many of the major drug stories in the area are participating, including Walgreens, Frys, Bashas’, CVS and others, Town Human Relations Manager/Director Debbie Bice told the council.

pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com | 547-9738