Prison closing should spur call to be economically prepared

The Union-Recorder

August 19, 2008 10:33 pm

— It could have been worse. That’s the sentiment from local leaders regarding the recent announcement to realign and phase out Rivers State Prison. Though the hammer did not fall as harshly as many may have predicted, we should all heed the closing of Rivers State as our own call to action and take a closer look at Milledgeville and Baldwin County’s long-term prospects for economic growth and the development of new jobs for our area.
Effective Oct. 1, the 1,100-bed facility will close its doors, with inmates relocated to one of the area’s other state prisons, and employees transitioning to other available prison jobs within a limited mile radius.
According to state leaders, including Department of Corrections Assistant Brian Owens, who visited Milledgeville Friday to discuss the move with local officials, the decision is an effort to counter the state’s ailing economic climate and at the same time help mend the state’s broken prison system.
And while the loss of jobs will affect not only the lives of the nearly 300 employees who must now find another commute to work, but also the businesses that relied on these workers as regular customers, the outcome could have been much more severe — as many local leaders have alluded in response to the move.
But even as Milledgeville skirts by somewhat unscathed, the recent decision should serve as a call for increased action to create new paths for economic growth and job diversification. The DOC move is just another in an increasingly more frequent decision-making pattern from the higher level to reduce the presence of state employment opportunities in communities like ours. More and more, the state jobs that were prevalent in past decades in communities like ours are drying up and disappearing, as facilities downsize to counter the economic climate. Now that the trend has been established, it’s up to us to curtail the domino effect.
The prison’s closing should serve as yet another wake up call to local leaders that we must not put too many of our eggs in the state government’s basket — particularly in these difficult economic times. Instead, we must work even harder than before to create other avenues for economic growth for ourselves and for our own community. We have what is hoped to be one potentially viable opportunity right before us with the new plan for the restructuring Baldwin’s state properties, which includes consolidation of local prison facilities. We must, however, remain diligent in our search for other sources to create our own economic development.
Hopefully, the families and businesses impacted by Rivers State Prison’s closing will remain in our community for many years to come, but we must look long-term at what we can provide for them economically should the next job or business venture fall through. We should all welcome the prospect of state-level employment opportunities — just look at the overall economic impact our three institutions of higher learning provide for our area — this week in particular as businesses in the area pick up with students returning following a slow summer. But, the recent prison closing decision should be a lesson to us that, now more than ever, local communities cannot rely long-term on state job windfalls to simply come knocking at our doors as readily as they have in the past.
We should take this recent announcement and use it as motivation to more closely examine our roadway infrastructure, our education systems, new innovations, and every other possible avenue we can improve in an effort to carve more jobs out of the overall economic pie. We may have escaped a close call this time, but we should not rest on our laurels in these uncertain economic times.