Tag Archives: Brad Lofton

Georgia is CCA’s model partner

“Primary site?” Really?

The

initial writeup in the VDT quoted CCA as being all coy
about if a need arose from the state they would be ready
to deploy the private prison in Lowndes County:



“This is (for) a future need that we don’t even know what it’ll
be yet,” Frank Betancourt, CCA’s vice president of real estate
development said. “There’s no ground breaking to announce. When the
need (for a facility) does arrive, we can be the first ones to offer
(our services).”

Yet if you look on

CCA’s own website under partnering:

CCA has been a great partner with us for nearly a decade now. Coffee
Correctional Facility and Wheeler Correctional Facility certainly meet
the standards of the Georgia Department of Corrections. I particularly


appreciate CCA maintaining exemplary accreditation status with both
the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on
Correctional Healthcare. I look forward to a continued long relationship
with them.”

—Commissioner James E. Donald, Georgia Department of Corrections

And over in Decatur County people actually asked about this, and were
told

Continue reading →

Private prisons do not increase local employment

According to an empirical study, siting a private prison in a rural county
does not increase employment.
(Big Prisons, Small Towns:
Prison Economics in Rural America
by Ryan S. King, Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling,
February 2003.)

Their Key Findings:



Overall, over the course of 25 years, we find no significant difference or
discernible pattern of economic trends between the seven rural counties in
New York that hosted a prison and the seven rural counties that did not
host a prison. While prisons clearly create new jobs, these benefits do
not aid the host county to any substantial degree since local residents
are not necessarily in a position to be hired for these jobs. The most
significant findings are as follows:

They go on to detail effects on unemployment during
economic recovery, downturn, and boom, and in each period

Continue reading →

Wiregrass Technical College @ VLCIA 15 March 2011



Wiregrass Technical College wants to expand onto some land owned
by the Industrial Authority, using
SPLOST funds.

Chairman Jerry Jennett:

The point is they’re landlocked.

And so what you want to do is you want to take what your tract is now
and have the ability to expand your building in the future.
You want to move your training facility now and….

More transcription after

the video:





Regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA,
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Brad Lofton Executive Director,

Allan Ricketts Program Manager, 15 March 2011.

Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Roy Copeland:

Continue reading →

CCA for Lowndes County in GeorgiaTrend



Ed Lightsey writes in GeorgiaTrend for March 2011,

Valdosta/Lowndes County: Taking Off
about many good developments in Lowndes County.
But among them is this:

About two years ago, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) began
looking for sites on which to build a prison, and after an 18-month
search chose Lowndes County, a decision that promises 400 to 600 new
jobs. “It’s a $150-million investment,” Lofton says. “That’s
the second largest investment in the history of the county. And of those
promised jobs, about 120 will require post secondary education; they are
nurses, physician assistants, dieticians and vocational rehab folks.”

CCA is the fifth largest penal system in the country, behind Florida,
Califor-nia, Texas and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, according to
Lofton. “They have about 20,000 employees across the country,”
he says.

So why do we need them here?

Continue reading →

Decatur County thinks it’s getting the CCA private prison

Jeff Findley wrote in the Post-Searchlight on 25 January 2011 about

Economic activity picking up:



Engineers with Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison
company that signed a memorandum of understanding almost a year ago with
the Authority to construct and operate a prison in the industrial park,
will be in Bainbridge on Feb. 18 to begin site work preparation.

Officials from Decatur County and the Development Authority with meet
with CCA officials and tour the site where the prison will be located.

“They’re anxious to get it going, but very guarded on making any
kind of projections about when things might start, but all indications
are it would be sooner rather than later,” said McCaskill.

Initial projections have the capital investment by CCA in the neighborhood
of $150 million and, when fully staffed, the facility would employ up
to 600 people.

Findley wrote that
Rick McCaskill is the
“executive director of the

Development Authority of Bainbridge and Decatur County.”

So in Decatur County CCA has gone from an announcement

last July
to a site visit six months later this January.

According to Col. Ricketts at the 15 March 2011 VLCIA board meeting,
CCA was coming to do a site visit in Lowndes
County two months later on 16 March 2011.
And according to Brad Lofton at that same meeting,
Lowndes County is CCA’s primary site.
What’s going on here (and there)?

The story continues in later posts.

-jsq

CCA private prison in Decatur County?

Brad Lofton mentioned
(at the 15 March 2011 VLCIA board meeting)
that the competition for VLCIA’s Project Excel,
the CCA private prison, is Decatur County.
Bainbridge and Decatur County seem to think they’ve been selected.

The Post-Searchlight editorialized on 16 July 2010 that the prison would be

A good fit.
The next day,

BainbridgeGa.com posted on 17 July 2010:



Corrections Corporation of America has finally announced their intention
to build a prison in Decatur County.

The not so secret secret was announced when the Bainbridge-Decatur County
Development Authority agreed to a memorandum of understanding with CCA
on Thursday.

The plans are to build what is thought to be in the range of a $100
million facility on 110 acres located in the Decatur County Industrial
Park on Highway 27 north. The site is in the back of the Industrial Park,
well back from the entrance on Highway 27 north.

It is hoped the facility will provide 400-500 jobs for our area in the
next couple of years.

So how come VLCIA thinks it’s getting a private prison from CCA?

The story continues in later posts.

-jsq

Competition for CCA’s private prison? –Roy Copeland



Roy Copeland had a question about Project Excel,
the
private prison that Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) wants
to build in Lowndes County,
at the

15 March 2011 VLCIA board meeting.

Q: He wanted to know if there are other communities competing for the project,
and whether they had also paid a second extension.

A: Col. Ricketts answered that there is another community competing,
but he did not know whether they had made that payment:

Continue reading →

CCA has made second payment towards private prison –Col. Ricketts



Regarding the
private prison that Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) wants
to build in Lowndes County,
at the 15 March 2011 VLCIA board meeting,
Col. Ricketts gave an update,

saying CCA had made a second payment as stipulated in the purchase
and development agreement:





Regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA,

Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,

J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Brad Lofton Executive Director, Allan Ricketts Program Manager,

15 March 2011

Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

The story continues in later posts.

-jsq

Private prison “a major impact on the community” –Brad Lofton



Previously we asked if
public objections caused VLCIA to change its tune about
letting CCA build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
OK, that was a rhetorical question: of course not!

Speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
28 January 2011,
Brad Lofton

praised the private prison project:

“…we hope will be under construction in the next 18 months.
It will be about $150 million dollar project;
anywhere from 4 to 600 new jobs.
A lot of communities in Georgia are built around state prisons.
A hundred of those 400 will be post-secondary, nutritionalists,
physicians, nurses, vocational rehab, so we’re proud of that project.
You’ll start to hear a little bit more about that.
There will be about 300 construction jobs over about a 24 month period,
which will have a major impact on the community.”





Brad Lofton, Executive Director,

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),

speaking at the
Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,

Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

That was part of Lofton’s famous

“jobs, jobs, jobs” speech.
Lofton is

gone now, but apparently VLCIA still plans the prison.

The story continues in later posts.

-jsq

CCA private prison in Lowndes County?

What’s Project Excel?
A private prison for Lowndes County, proposed by
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

Back in August 2010 when the VDT first brought this story to light,

I pointed out that CCA is the same company that lobbied heavily
for Arizona’s new immigration law so CCA could get more customers.
And I wondered what VLCIA thought about this?
Silly question: of course they’re all for it!
It’s “jobs, jobs, jobs” with them.



As of 21 December 2010,

apparently things were still pretty tentative
when Brad Lofton gave an update to the VLCIA board,
claiming the CCA private prison would bring 600 jobs to Lowndes County, Georgia:





Regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA,

Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Gary Minchew, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,

J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Brad Lofton Executive Director, Allan Ricketts Program Manager,

21 December 2010

Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Some public objection had surfaced by 20 January 2010,
when

Dr. Mark George remarked to the Valdosta City Council:



“I think we can do better than a generator that burns human waste. I
think we can do better than a private prison and those are two things
that we seem to be excited about as a community.”

Next, we’ll see if objections had any effect on the Industrial Authority.

-jsq