Say no to prison and say no to jobs

Published 6:50 pm Sunday, April 1, 2007

In a few months, Adams County will have one of its largest local elections ever. Ironically, a non-election this month may have more impact than the fall election results.

Politicians will build their platforms on the need for increasing jobs to the area.

A company has recently said it would locate in Adams County, investing $90 million and bringing approximately 300 jobs.

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The jobs aren’t the perfect kind — whatever that is. And the investment is a prison.

Who wants one of those? We do.

Adams County is in the middle of a dance involving two private prison developers — Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group — and three potential county suitors — Adams, Pike and Walthall counties.

CCA says it wants to build somewhere immediately. GEO says it will build, only in Adams County, but only if it earns a federal prison contract.

In Pike County, the decision is headed to an April 17 vote. In Adams County a small group of residents are working hard to send the issue to a vote, too. Their deadline for having an eligible petition is one week after the Pike County election.

The CCA group has said it will wait until after the Pike County election and after the Adams County petition deadline passes before making its decision.

We see that public decision to wait on Adams County as a promising thing. The company appears to want to come here, if we’ll have them.

The choice is yours, fellow taxpayers, skip signing the petition and vote “yes” on the prison.

Sign it and say “no” to jobs.