Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah lawmakers on Wednesday afternoon are set to take up a controversial proposal to relocate the state prison near Salt Lake City’s airport.
A state commission chose the site earlier this month after Utah officials debated and studied the issue for years.
If the Legislature approves the move during their one-day special session Wednesday, the proposal goes to Gov. Gary Herbert for approval.
Proponents of the move say the lot 3 miles west of Salt Lake City International Airport will allow Utah to build a state-of-the-art facility and tear down a crowded, aging prison in the Salt Lake City suburb of Draper, freeing up that land for business development.
Lawmakers who helped lead the search for a new prison site say they have enough votes in Utah’s GOP-controlled Legislature to approve the site Wednesday, but some Democrats who represent Salt Lake City say it will hurt economic development there, while some Republicans are balking at the $550 million cost of moving the prison
Salt Lake City opposes the move, and city officials are threatening a lawsuit to block the prison.
The resolution lawmakers will vote on Wednesday gives Utah the go-ahead to purchase the land, which is expected to cost about $30 million.
A Republican and Democrat opposed to the relocation plan to ask lawmakers to consider a competing resolution that instead calls for the state to study if the 60-year-old prison should be rebuilt at the Draper site.
Consultants working for the Prison Relocation Commission estimated that making the Salt Lake City land suitable for a facility that can house about 4,500 inmates would cost about $150 million, up from an initial estimate of about $130 million they gave lawmakers last month.
About $60 million would be spent on stabilizing its soft soil.
One lawmaker, Democratic Sen. Jim Dabakis of Salt Lake City, has called for lawmakers to postpone a vote on relocating the prison after he learned that consultants studying the issue had paid more than $69 million in civil and criminal penalties over claims it overbilled the federal government for reconstruction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Officials at New Jersey-based Louis Berger Group Inc. agreed in 2010 to more strictly monitor its operations and said was adopting ethics and compliance training for workers, among other changes.
Kaysville Republican Rep. Brad Wilson, co-chair of the prison commission, told KUTV-TV that those past issues and the employees involved in them are not related to work by the company’s other consultants in Utah.
In addition to the Salt lake City site, the commission discussed moving the prison to locations in Grantsville, Eagle Mountain and Fairfield, as local officials and residents lined up to oppose the project they fear will hurt property values and choke development.
Consultants estimated that a Salt Lake City prison would cost $423 million to operate over 50 years. The three other sites would run $670 million or more than $700 million over 50 years.
Redeveloping the Draper site for business use could generate from $557 million to $2.7 billion in economic activity, according to estimates released by lawmakers.
If the prison isn’t moved, it will cost Utah $578 million over 20 years to improve and maintain the current site, according to the commission.