hill country observerThe independent newspaper of eastern New York, southwestern Vermont and the Berkshires

 

News August 2024

 

A MONTH IN THE HILLS

Prison closing stirs fears for nearby towns

 

New York’s plan to close Great Meadow Correctional Facility has set off an outcry in northern Washington County, where the maximum-security prison has long been a major employer.
The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision announced July 18 that it plans to shut Great Meadow and another maximum-security prison in Sullivan County effective Nov. 6. The department could close up to three additional facilities this year under the provisions of the state budget that took effect in April.


Although the department says everyone on Great Meadow’s staff of 559 will be offered positions at other facilities or agencies around the state, union leaders and local elected officials decried the pending disruption to employees’ families – and the potential economic blow to local communities if many of the prison’s workers wind up leaving the area.


State Sen. Jake Ashby, a Rensselaer County Republican whose district includes the town of Granville, called the closing of Great Meadow “a job-killing, community-devastating disaster.”
But the state corrections agency says the closings are necessary as it continues to adjust to a long-term decline in the prison population – and because it is struggling to meet staffing needs in the facilities that remain open.


As violent crime has declined dramatically over the past three decades, particularly in New York City, the number of people incarcerated in the state’s prisons has shrunk by more than half. New York’s prison population, which peaked at more than 72,000 in 1999, was down to 33,000 last month, and the state has shut more than 20 prisons in the past two decades, leaving 44 open today.


Great Meadow, built in 1911, is one of the state’s largest prisons, with a capacity of 1,595 inmates, but its population stood at 480 in July. It is adjacent to the smaller, medium-security Washington Correctional Facility. Both facilities are located in Comstock, a hamlet within the town of Fort Ann, and many of their employees live in Fort Ann, Granville and Whitehall.


Although Washington Correctional Facility will remain open, and some Great Meadow employees might be able to transfer there, state Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, whose district includes Comstock, told The Post-Star of Glens Falls that the smaller prison has only about 75 jobs available. He predicted several hundred families might leave the area.


In the past, state law required one year of public notice before the closing of a correctional facility, but the required notice period was shortened to 90 days under the administration of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Several area legislators said last month that the 90-day window leaves too little time for workers to plan their next move.


New York has struggled to find new uses for the prisons it has closed, including at the former Mount McGregor Correctional Facility in Saratoga County, which has been vacant for a decade, and several area officials warned that Great Meadow could be left to deteriorate.


But the state’s move to shutter Great Meadow drew praise from some advocacy groups and elected officials who have pushed New York to move away from the policies of mass incarceration it adopted in the high-crime era of the 1980s and ‘90s.


State Sen. Julia Salazar, D-Brooklyn, who heads the Senate committee with jurisdiction over corrections, applauded the decision, telling the nonprofit online news site New York Focus that Great Meadow suffered from “especially high rates of violence and oppression.” The site reported that Great Meadow had the highest rate of inmate suicides of any facility in the state.


In other news from around the region in July:

 

Former college may become a resort
A plan to develop a luxury resort on the former campus of Southern Vermont College is advancing and might be able to break ground next year, the property’s current owner says.
The Bennington Banner reported in late July that Thomas Dee, the president and chief executive of Southwestern Vermont Health Care, which owns the former college campus, said he expects developer Alfred Weissman Real Estate LLC will soon announce a hospitality brand partner for the project. Once that partner is revealed, Dee said, the project will be able to start the process of pursuing needed permits and regulatory reviews.


Southwestern Vermont Health Care, which runs the Bennington hospital, bought the former college campus at a 2020 bankruptcy auction, about a year after the college shut down, for $4.65 million. Last year it announced a deal to sell the property to the Weissman firm for redevelopment as a destination resort.


The property is anchored by the historic Everett Mansion, a stone castle-like structure built in the 1910s as the summer home of the industrialist Edward Everett.
-- Compiled by Fred Daley