Author
Renee Feltz
In early June, residents of Tallulah, a rural Mississippi Delta town joined Families and Friends of Lousiana's Incarcerated Children to celebrate the closure of a youth detention center that made their town's name synonomous with prison abuse. Now, they're fighting to turn the notorious facility into an educuational center.
On this page, I've uploaded the many reports I filed based on my visit to cover Tallulah as it stands at crossroads... I'm a reporter with KFPT News on Pacifica station 90.1 FM, and with Houston Indymedia. The first report was for the Friday, June 4 edition of KPFT News. The rest are explained below...
UPDATE from the Times-Picayune
Tallulah bill gets money hiccup
Renovation as school would cost millions
Thursday, June 10, 2004
By Laura Maggi
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- A proposal to turn the recently vacated youth prison in Tallulah into a school campus was dealt a blow Wednesday, when the head of the House budget committee amended the bill to require the state to buy the facility before any money is spent on renovations.
Although the panel sent the legislation to the House floor for further consideration, there isn't much time left in the session for Sen. Charles Jones, D-Monroe, the main legislative proponent of the measure, to work out a deal to purchase the youth prison.
The facility is owned by Trans-American Development Associates, but the state is required to continue paying the $3.4 million annual debt service for the next 15 years. After the prison's debt is paid off by the state, Trans-American will maintain ownership.
Community leaders told the House Appropriations Committee that they no longer want a prison in the middle of their town. As part of the state's efforts to revamp the juvenile justice system, the last of the juveniles were removed from Tallulah last week and the prison has been turned over to the state Department of Corrections, which plans to turn it into a substance abuse treatment center for adult inmates.
Rep. John Alario, D-Westwego, chairman of the committee, questioned the wisdom of making significant investments in property that the state doesn't own. "We will be paying for our building twice," he said.
But David Utter, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, said the state has already made significant investments in the privately owned prison in order to comply with court-ordered improvements of the facility. The Department of Corrections also plans some renovations of its own to make the prison suitable for adult inmates.
Utter argued it makes more sense to spend renovation dollars on a school than on a prison.
Senate Bill 785 calls for turning the Tallulah prison, which includes about 30 classrooms and other school-appropriate facilities, as well as three cell blocks, into a learning center. This center would include a high school for Madison Parish, as well as in later phases of development a community college and vocational school.
"We do not want to be a prison town any longer," said Janet Clark, a member of the Tallulah City Council. "Prisons are not good tools for economic development."
But turning a prison into a school comes with a price tag. An architect working on the project said it could take up to $4 million to create a high school, while the full learning center could take up to $19 million.
While private foundations and charities might help the state foot the bill for these transformations, the state would have to make the initial investment, said Ajulo Norman with the Southern Rural Development Initiative, a nonprofit group in North Carolina that works with rural communities.
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Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or (225) 342-5590.
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