Transcripts

LEIF ENGER: The countryside around Camp Ripley holds farmsteads carved from forests, fields awaiting planting, and gentle hills scattered with dairy cows and dormant tractors. It's no wonder the mayor of Randall, Lyle Nelson, likes agricultural similes.

LYLE NELSON: I think of Camp Ripley as like say a dairy farmer that has a big dairy barn which could house in say 100 milk cows, and he's down to 25. Well, he's just not going to stay viable with a quarter of what he should have in there. And I think it's true of Camp Ripley. We're probably using 25% of the facilities that are out there, and why not use the rest of them?

LEIF ENGER: Randall is just eight miles from Camp Ripley, and Nelson, a lifelong resident, has watched the community swell and ebb with the camp's fortunes. For years, Ripley has hummed with National Guard reserves from other states, arriving for military exercises inside the camp's 53,000 acres. But budgets are tight in the guard these days.

A unit from the Southern states that might have trained here a few years ago, today might find a place closer to home. As a result, two buildings now sit vacant inside the camp. Big, strong, and available, the buildings are drawing desirous glances from the Department of Corrections.

JIM BROUGHTON: We're very crowded. We have a great need for beds. We're overcapacity [COUGHS] right now in virtually all of our facilities.

LEIF ENGER: Deputy Corrections Commissioner Jim Broughton says the empty buildings at Ripley look like the state's best chance to ease crowded prisons.

JIM BROUGHTON: The attractiveness of this, I think, has been the fact that the beds could become available so quickly with very, very little work to be done. I mean, we could almost move in with very little type of capital work, if any.

LEIF ENGER: Broughton says the buildings could house as many as 312 inmates. He says it's too early to say what it might cost to lease the site, though it would certainly be less than, for example, the $100 million expected to be spent on a new prison in Bram. So far, the state's intention to put only non-violent prisoners at Ripley seems to have kept local worries down. Randall mayor Nelson says he hasn't received so much as a phone call from anyone distressed about the proposal. An afternoon's drive around the borders of the camp turned up opinions that were mostly low key and optimistic.

SPEAKER 1: Well, I feel that as long as they can maintain it, and keep the prisoners in there, and do the way they're supposed to, everything should be OK.

SPEAKER 2: But if they aren't violent prisoners, it would be OK, I guess.

SPEAKER 3: I think in the long run, I think it'll be good for the community. It'll probably provide some more jobs. And I think it will save the state and the taxpayers some dollars.

LEIF ENGER: There might be other voices at the public hearing. State Senator Don Samuelson of Brainerd says siting new prisons can be a contentious job. But Samuelson likes the idea of housing prisoners at Ripley, because of the possible $10 to $15 million employee payroll.

DON SAMUELSON: If you had a company that was going to move into the Little Falls area, and said they were going to employ 200 people, you'd be doing handstands to get them there. We're talking about well-paid positions and state employment and benefits. So if people want it, it's quite a boon.

LEIF ENGER: Tonight's public hearing is set for 7:30 at the Camp Ripley Community Center. A decision on the proposal is unlikely until after the legislative session. However, corrections Deputy Commissioner Jim Broughton says if the plan is approved, prisoners could be housed at Ripley as early as July. Leif Enger, Main Street Radio.