LITTLE RED HEN: Whos going with me? Not I! said the lamb. Not I! said the cat. Not I! said the pig. ... ??? --- At the meeting last night to review the findings of the study of the health impact of moving the prison to Tooele, these are a few of the findings: - we are a very small population base here in Tooele. One of our largest towns, Grantsville, has about 9K people. Between the new jails employees, volunteers, residents, and visitors, the prison would add roughly that same number of new people. It would be like plopping a new city right in the middle of our valley over night! - going in the direction of the courts, there is only 1 way in and out (I-80) -- this route experiences a major accident a handful of times a year that result in major delays. Transporting prisoners to the courts in SLCo would get experience major scheduling problems during these events - going in the direction of SLCo -- which is where most of the employees are expected to be coming from, and the courts are located at, 1 of the 2 roads that would be utilized every day by *THOUSANDS* of commuters would be SR-138 -- a road which is already 30% over capacity - our county is in the middle of a major drought -- so much so that last night one of our areas farmers stated that many years ago she could water her crops with water that naturally came to the surface of her well. Today she has to employ pumps to pump the water out of the ground -- at a cost to her of $3K per month! - the new prison will consume the water of about 1800 new homes - prison communities tend to also be halfway-home communities. One resident who relocated here from Oregon said her community there was a small town home to 11 halfway-homes, and experienced a lot of problems because their community was overburdened with too much for their small community to deal with. - our entire county is ALREADY 89% publicly owned. Only 11% of our entire county is private land. Of that 11%, the MMP land being considered is smack in the middle of the most economically-viable land -- one expected in the future to have major growth. This would not only place a prison right in the middle of our future economic-hub -- but would reduce the measly 11% of land that is actually ours to even less! - according to studies, prisons really dont bring jobs; or, rather, they displace jobs. So, if the prison brings in 1K jobs, then you can expect that increase to be offset by about 1K jobs as local business move away or close down because of the impact of a prison in the community; over the long-term, we will still grow, but according to studies, non-prison towns that are otherwise similar to ours will grow faster than we will (if we have a prison). --- Can our community support the infrastructure-demands of an additional city, that will be brought to us literally OVER NIGHT? Water, electricity, healthcare, education, roads, sewage, garbage, law enforcement, etc, etc? Do you realize the ramifications to our property values and our taxes if a prison is built here? I am certain I missed other great points brought up last night; there were so many other excellent points brought up by people! I am sure a few of these I misunderstood a bit. I am not trying to relay the whole, complete, perfect picture. Please do not complain that my quick FB-post here was not up to standards. I went to the meeting. This is what I walked away with. I am trying to share with all to encourage all to GET INTERESTED! As one of our elected officials who was there last night told us: - citizen participation is taken seriously in the following order: * FB-sniping (least important) * emails * phone calls * physically attending official/community events to speak your opinion directly to all concerned (most important -- maximum potential for substantial impact) How about we stop FB-sniping and start getting physically involved? --- Q: are you going to the PRC-meeting at the state capitol on monday at 2PM? Resident 1: Not I; I have to work Resident 2: Not I; I have kids to take care of Resident 3: Not I; I have a christmas-something to take care of ... ???
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 14:01:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015