By Rick Karlin
Times Union
ALBANY — By the end of Saturday, Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility in Wilton will have closed its doors for good, along with several other upstate prisons, as the state’s inmate population continues to shrink.
The closing, in the works for more than a year, will come after several last-minute efforts by local lawmakers to keep the prison open as a source of stable and relatively well-paying jobs.
Inmates were moved to other prisons in April. The shutdown of the medium-security facility will follow a mandated year-long notice period designed to give employees and their unions time to make plans.
Many of the 322 people who had worked at the prison, including correctional officers, have been or are being transferred to other facilities: About 120 are headed to jobs at Comstock in Washington County, about 30 miles away; 29 have transferred to Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie, Greene County, about 65 miles south, according to state data.
Employees also transferred to Hale Creek at Johnstown in Fulton County; and Adirondack in Ray Brook, Essex County, as well as to the Corrections Department main office and other state agencies, including the Office of General Services. Forty three others chose to retire.
Also closing on Saturday are Butler in Red Creek, Wayne County; Chateaugay in Franklin County and the Monterey shock facility in Beaver Dams, Schuyler County.
The Mt. McGregor facility’s final days were not without a bit of drama. On Thursday, reporter Mark Mulholland of WNYT-TV was threatened with arrest after a correction officer said he shouldn’t be filming from the prison access road.
The officer, a lieutenant, told Mulholland and his cameraman to leave because they didn’t have permission to film on prison property.
Another prison guard tried to block the TV crew from entering Grant Cottage, an historic site on the prison grounds where former President Ulysses S. Grant died of throat cancer in 1885.
State officials said the station had earlier been denied permission to shoot video on the prison grounds for what officials said were “security reasons.” They also cited prison policy.
But Mulholland said prison personnel went too far. “They called the State Police. They wanted us arrested,” he said.
A State Trooper showed up but didn’t arrest them.
The confrontation prompted The Associated Press to send a letter of protest. “We believe that the Channel 13 crew is owed an apology,” read part of a letter from Ken Tingley of the Glens Falls Post Star, the current president of the New York State Associated Press Association.
WNYT News Director Eric Hoppel said Mulholland was reporting that the Grant Cottage site is scheduled to stay open after the prison closes.
Another crew from a production company was on the prison grounds that day, shooting exterior scenes for a drama. State officials wouldn’t divulge details about the production.
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