Latest news with #ProjectPrisonResetTaskForce
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
10 things to know about a potential state prison site in Davison County
Jun. 4—MITCHELL — Great prisons come with great responsibility. The Mitchell City Council, during its regular meeting on June 2, unanimously approved a resolution expressing interest in the construction of a state correctional facility in Davison County. Here are 10 facts and questions discussed about the potential Mitchell prison site. No. 1: The city's resolution shows interest in the prison, but is non-binding The resolution was introduced by council member Tim Goldammer on the eve of a Project Prison Reset Task Force meeting to follow on Tuesday in Pierre. The resolution states that a correctional facility "would create significant economic opportunities, including the creation of stable, well-paying jobs, increased demand for local goods and services, and long-term infrastructure investments." In addition, the resolution cited interest in collaboration to ensure "public safety and community well-being" from local law enforcement, community leaders, the Davison County Commission and economic development organizations. The resolution also promises "open dialogue, careful planning and engagement with residents to ensure that concerns are heard and solutions are implemented." No. 2: A final prison decision will be made in July July 8 is to be the final meeting of the prison search commission, according to Lauritsen. Lauritsen says a special session of the South Dakota legislature will meet on July 22 in regards to the prison. No. 3: Wherever is chosen as a prison site will receive a boost in employee spending. Mitchell Area Development Corporation CEO Mike Lauritsen told the council that a prison will bring an estimated 441 new jobs with an annual payroll of $36.7 million and an average wage between $25 and $30 an hour. The annual operating budget for the new prison is estimated at $55 million per year. Lauritsen said a prison taking three to four years to build allows time to plan ways to address the state's second lowest unemployment rate, but did not go into specifics. "We have an opportunity in front of us to grow this community, for our businesses, for our housing developments," Lauritsen said. No. 4: A third-party ranked Mitchell fourth out of six potential prison sites. A study from Arizona-based Arrington Watkins Architects put the existing Lincoln County site owned by the South Dakota Department of Corrections as the top option. According to a Mitchell Area Development Corporation state prison proposal, a $2.88 million 160 acre potential prison site is located near the Mitchell Regional Landfill, and is owned by James River Farms. The location is outside of Mitchell city limits in Davison County. No. 5: According to Mitchell Mayor Jordan Hanson, those inmates who are from Mitchell will be released to Mitchell. Hanson addressed concerns about released prison inmates ending up in Mitchell, but did not have any official documents from the state promising that other parolees would not be released in Mitchell. Rehabilitation, space and counseling is a big expense for the state with a new prison site, according to Hanson, who says that the present state prison is overcapacity "As far as releasing prisoners, they're going to get paroled back to where they either got arrested originally, where they were tried, or into the larger cities," Hanson said. No. 6: The potential Mitchell site makes for an escape-friendly location. Davison County resident and Mitchell business man Scott Studer reminded the council that the South Dakota Department of Corrections wants the prison site to be away from Interstate 90, a highway, and a waterway. "We just put it at the corner of Jim River, I-90 and Highway 37," he said. "So good luck trying to get them to go for that." No. 7: Davison County residents are concerned that property taxes may rise. Davison County resident Michelle Studer said she lives within 2 miles of the proposed Mitchell site. "You're taking 160 acres out of the tax rolls," Michelle Studer said, "because I'm assuming that the prison is tax exempt. Where's that money going to come from?" No. 8: Davison County residents are concerned that they don't have a say in denying or approving the potential prison site. Mitchell resident Dwight Stadler expressed many concerns, the theme of which is that the prison would increase property taxes in Davison County. "Davison County voters should have a say on a ballot," Stadler said. No. 9. The construction itself will cost almost $1 billion, according to Lauritsen. The $825 million prison built could be placed near another high-cost construction site in Davison County. To put this in perspective, the High Plains Processing soybean plant south of Mitchell, still under construction, is estimated to cost about $500 million. In comparison to the proposed 160-acre prison site, the soybean plant sits on 148 acres. 10. City leaders acknowledge the prison is a dividing topic. Hanson and Lauritsen urged residents to not get heated during the night's discussions. "If we're eliminated (from consideration), we fight (over) nothing. We divide this community for nothing," Lauritsen said. Lauritsen offered to field any questions and pass them on to the South Dakota Governor's Office.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Task force members react to consultant's proposal
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — In its latest report, a consultant has new recommendations for the Project Prison Reset Task Force. Arrington Watkins submitted its recommendation Monday morning. After weighing factors such as location, availability to utilities and to emergency vehicle access among other things, the group recommended for the task force to take a closer look at six of the possible 13 sites, with one familiar location leading the way. DOH reports first measles case in South Dakota The six sites at the top of the consultant's list are the existing Lincoln County site, CitiBank and Kappenman, which are both in Sioux Falls, Worthing, Mitchell and Huron. 'It was necessary to somehow get down to a manageable list. Six seems reasonable,' South Dakota Republican Representative and task force member Greg Jamison said. The locations were analyzed based on a point system. At the top was the Lincoln County site, located between Harrisburg and Canton. 'One of the key takeaways is they're trying to find a place for 1500 or 1700 beds all in one place. There's a lot of advantages and efficiencies to having one location with these many beds where you've got one fence, one perimeter to manage, you've got all that food that needs to be prepared,' Jamison said. However, Republican representative and task force member Karla Lems sees it differently. 'I don't think we have to have it all in one spot. I disagree with him on that. I think we have opportunity in Sioux Falls. I go back to the DLR Group study, which made a lot of sense to me. You could build another 300-bed facility between the old hill and the Jameson. You can add up on the Jamison 192 beds,' Lems said. It gives the task force plenty to discuss at its next meeting in Pierre Tuesday. 'I think it's going to be very spirited and, full of ideas, questions and hard answers, probably hard questions. But tomorrow, I think you're going to see some outcomes that finally get this prison issue on the right track,' Jamison said. 'I think we're going to have a lot of input. I think we're going to have testimony from people, probably from these different areas that have been proposed to say, 'These are the things that would be good about it coming to our town or our city.' They're going to have opposition to some of these things,' Lems said. The task force will meet at 10:30 Tuesday morning in Pierre. We will be livestreaming the discussion on on our website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Project Prison Reset Task Force hears about Mitchell as potential prison site
Apr. 29—SPRINGFIELD, S.D. — South Dakota is considering building a new prison. One question is where to put it. Could Mitchell be the answer to that question? That was the topic Tuesday afternoon in Springfield, where the Project Prison Reset Task Force met to discuss a number of potential candidate sites, including Mitchell, for a prison that was at one time set to be constructed in Lincoln County before public pushback and legislative funding issues derailed the project. A recent proposal to build a new state prison in Lincoln County faced significant setbacks and was ultimately put on hold, with the state moving on to exploring alternative sites. Funding for the project was rejected by the South Dakota House of Representatives in February 2025. Despite spending or obligating nearly $51 million on the Lincoln County site, the state is now re-evaluating potential locations. A working group, known as Project Prison Reset, was formed by Rhoden to determine the best path forward for a new prison. "We've received the message that the current prison plan does not have buy-in this legislative session. We've also heard agreement from pretty much everyone that we need a new prison," Rhoden said in a statement in February. "This working group is our 'reset' button. Everything that came before is in the rearview mirror. From now on, we're looking forward." The task force has been meeting every four weeks since April with the design of answering three main questions: whether the state needs a new prison, how big it should be and where it should go. Mike Lauritsen, CEO of the Mitchell Area Development Corporation, wrote in his cover letter for the site information request that Mitchell is ideally located to provide high accessibility for a facility such as a prison. "Located at the intersection of Interstate 90 and State Highway 37, Mitchell is within 35 miles of U.S. Highway 81 and 22 miles to Highway 281 and 70 miles from Interstate 29," Lauritsen wrote in his cover letter for the information request. "Market access is further extended by access to two rail lines and Mitchell's world-class communications technology, including fiber-to-the-premises broadband and gigabit speeds." Information provided on the potential Mitchell location indicates the James River Farms property as a candidate site. The property, which is located in southeast Mitchell, has approximately 160 acres available for development with additional property adjacent for future development. The property is specifically located east of Highway 37, south of Spruce Street. This would place the property directly west of the city treatment plants and sewer lagoons. The property is a mile from State Highway 37, a main two-lane highway, and is less than three miles from Interstate 90 exit 332. The land is currently zoned as agriculture and would need a conditional use permit from the county until rezoned. The property would be served by city of Mitchell water and sewer, but extension of the city services would be required for the development in some areas. The estimated cost of the land comes in at $18,000 per acre, or about $2.8 million. Earlier this month, the Mitchell City Council approved a purchase agreement for the property to purchase the 160-acre parcel of land west of the Mitchell Regional Landfill for $3.48 million. The intention of the purchase was for the city to be able to eventually expand the nearby Mitchell Regional Landfill. Ryan Brunner, senior policy advisor and director of legislative relations for Rhoden's office, who gave a rundown of the potential sites submitted to the task force, said the Mitchell site had some positive aspects, including a clear price listed. "Mitchell has a site. They have a price. Some of these sites do not have a price on them. They have a listing of all of the utilities and some of that information," Brunner told the task force. "Some sites like Mitchell already have a price out there, (in this case) $18,000 per acre." Rep. Jack Kolbeck, a member of the task force, said he would like to hear more about what locals at the candidate sites think of the proposed facility. He noted that he had received multiple calls from members of the public and the feedback he had gotten about the proposed Mitchell site was generally negative. That feedback should be taken into consideration, he said. "I think I'll go back to one of the original comments made about the development areas around where they have proposed a site, and I'll just use Mitchell and Grant (County) as two of them that I have received phone calls and emails on from people that live around those areas. Some are positive," Kolbeck said. "Most around the Mitchell area are not. I'm just saying that I think that that should be directed back to those people." The Mitchell site has sewer, electricity, water, natural gas and fiber optic internet and an estimated cost lower than some other candidate sites. Comparatively, the former CitiBank site in Sioux Falls has similar amenities but a cost that comes in at around $33.8 million. The Worthing site also has similar amenities but comes in at an estimated cost of $14.3 million. Those sites come in at around 69 acres and 110 developable acres, respectively, though the CitiBank site sports 300,000 square feet of existing building space whereas the Mitchell and Worthing sites have none. Property in Huron, listed at 127 acres, also has comparable resources but a price that's listed as negotiable. Kolbeck also said it wasn't clear to him if it was or was not a good idea to build a prison next to an interstate. He asked if that were the case, should the task force remove any candidate sites based on that type of concern? Rep. Greg Jamison also asked if it was appropriate to be discussing potential site locations when three major questions the group was tasked with answering — if a new prison is needed, how big should it be and finally, where should it go? Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen, who is the chair of the task force, said in-depth discussion on those factors would be more appropriate for the next meeting of the task force, which would be held after a consultant report addressing those questions is released to task force members. That should give them more information to go on, he said. "We are not making a decision at this point. We're just asking questions to make sure we understand," Venhuizen said. "But the consultant report, which addresses the first two questions that you've mentioned, will be available prior to our next meeting, which is June 3, and I agree with you that we need to talk about those first two questions and then return to these locations and see where that fits into these sites. So I do think you have the sequence correct. So this is by no means the last time we'll be talking about these." The task force later ended up unanimously approving a motion made by Marty Jackley, attorney general for South Dakota and a member of the task force, that stated that the task force believed that the state penitentiary needs to be replaced without giving any specifics to the needed size or location of any replacement facility. Sites being explored along with Mitchell, Huron, CitiBank and Worthing include Aberdeen, Grant Count and six other Sioux Falls area locations, as well as the previously considered site in Lincoln County. The task force did not select a site or finalist locations, though they expect that may occur at their next meeting. Other input heard by the task force Tuesday included presentations on the behavioral health and Life Mentoring programs at Mike Durfee State Prison, which is located in Springfield, along with a presentation on the Governor's House program, the product of which is built at the prison. Final recommendations made by the working group will be presented at a special legislative session on July 22. The next scheduled meetings for the task force include June 3 in Pierre and July 8 in Sioux Falls.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Milstead: penitentiary reminds him of 'an above-ground dungeon'
SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) — Throughout the week, we've been reporting on the meetings held by Governor Larry Rhoden's Project Prison Reset Task Force. And now, we're hearing from some of the members about their tour of the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls. Wednesday's tour came as the task force explores more options about building a new men's prison, after funding for a Lincoln County facility failed to find support in the legislature. Descriptions of what they saw behind prison walls ranged from 'difficult,' to 'a dungeon.' Task force members respond after 2 days of prison talk Sheriff Mike Milstead has been inside the South Dakota Penitentiary multiple times during his decades in law enforcement. But Wednesday's four-hour tour of the pen was still eye-opening to him. 'In particular, the living conditions and the working conditions in the the old hill, or the old cells that you see when you're on North Drive. Almost reminded me like an above-ground dungeon,' Milstead said State Rep. Greg Jamison says checking out the conditions of the penitentiary almost became secondary to being in the presence of the inmates. 'I saw sadness, I saw humans depleted, I saw angry people. The building was one thing, I had seen parts of it before, but it was honestly, the human side of it that was the most striking of all,' Jamison said. State Rep. Erin Healy was one of just a handful of women on the tour, giving her a different perspective of life behind bars inside a men's prison. 'And seeing their bathroom and the places where they shower, I don't want to say uncomfortable, but just different,' Healy said. Both Healy and Jamison say the highlight of the tour was seeing the job training underway at the prison's Pheasantland Industries. 'And we saw some inmates working there. You can tell that they're so proud of the work that they do and they're happy to be there, they're learning skills that are going to be incredibly useful for them when they enter back into society,' Healy said. The task force members say seeing first-hand the stark conditions inside the penitentiary further underscores the need for a new men's prison. 'I don't really care where this new penitentiary is. Let's find the best space that will gather the most support,' Healy said. 'It's pretty hard to go through a building like that and think, okay, we can do better, we can have a safer place,' Jamison said. 'Seeing the living environment and the work environment there, was somewhat embarrassing as a South Dakotan, that we haven't done more earlier. So, I think this is the chance we have to change that,' Milstead said. Milstead says he's also given members of the task force tours of the Minnehaha County Jail that opened in 2003 and expanded in 2019. He says the goal is to give task force members an idea of what a state-of-the-art housing facility should look like. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
