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Hortonia youth prison project could be delayed

Assembly votes to keep Lincoln Hills open longer

By Scott Bellile


The Wisconsin Assembly voted to keep Irma’s state youth prisons open longer, potentially delaying when new Type 1 juvenile corrections facilities could be built in the town of Hortonia and Milwaukee.

A bill requiring the state to keep operating the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls for an extra six months – until July 1, 2021 – passed on a voice vote without debate during an Assembly session in Madison on Thursday, June 20.

The proposal will appear before the state Senate next week.

Rep. Michael Schraa, R-Oshkosh, introduced the deadline extension in response to how the Department of Corrections handled its announcement of the proposed youth prison in Hortonia, he said during a news conference prior to Thursday’s Assembly session.

Rep. Gary Tauchen, R-Bonduel, authored an amendment to Assembly Bill 188 that would require DOC officials to meet with a municipality’s governing body to discuss the potential community impacts of constructing a juvenile correctional facility as well as hold a public listening session before proceeding.

“That really wasn’t done in the case of Hortonia,” Schraa said. “(The DOC) just basically made the announcement, and unfortunately because of the way it was done, there is 600 people that have signed a petition now not to have it in Hortonia.”

The red box shows the town of Hortonia property where the Wisconsin Department of Corrections is proposing a juvenile correctional facility. The property is southeast of the U.S. Highway 45 and State Highway 15 intersection.
Image created using Google Maps

Tauchen’s amendment would also require approval from the governing body of a municipality where a youth prison exists before the DOC adds to the building or “substantially” modifies it.

“There was some concern that once the building is built that there could be an addition added on and added on” without local input, Schraa said of Hortonia area residents’ thinking.

Schraa heard residents’ concerns when he attended the anti-youth prison rally, organized by the group Citizens for the Preservation of Hortonia, held in the town on June 15.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said the Joint Finance Committee’s recent decision to reallocate $25 million in funding for the state-run facilities to the proposed county-run facilities “makes perfect sense” because he believes the county-run facilities should be completed before the two state-run facilities.

Schraa said the funding that was shifted away from the proposed state-run youth prisons will be restored after the Legislature’s summer break.

Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, who contributed to the amendment to the Assembly’s bill, said he wants to ensure Hortonia’s residents are heard by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the DOC.

“As we continue to contest this location, the unfortunate reality is that despite the Administration’s fumble of this announcement and failure to properly assess this decision, a juvenile correctional facility could still be built in Hortonia,” Cowles said in a statement. “Wherever these Type 1 Facilities are built, local leaders need to be included in discussions about these facilities moving forward. Evers’ DOC claims these facilities will look like a school or an office building. This amendment will ensure that residents near Type 1 Facilities will have their voices heard if the Administration tries to back-track and make these facilities look like a prison or unilaterally expand the facility.”

In April, DOC Secretary-designee Kevin Carr visited Hortonia and apologized for the department not communicating with Hortonia on the matter.

However, he remained committed to building the estimated $30 million facility on the proposed site southeast of the State Highway 15 and U.S. Highway 45 intersection.

The Department of Administration’s timeline is to construct Hortonia’s juvenile facility in 2020 and open it to youth in 2021.

The DOA and DOC said the Legislature’s proposal to keep open Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake until mid-2021 and require additional input from the proposed communities would “create a significant departure” from the original timeline for the new state-run facilities.

“The new process is dependent upon members of the legislature to not only schedule meetings in a timely fashion, but also secure enough votes in the legislature AND in the State Building Commission to keep the Act 185 timeline on track,” Molly Vidal, communications director for the DOC, told the Press Star in an email. “These are activities that are not under Department of Corrections or Department of Administration control. Because this is a departure from the normal building process and changes the original process outlined in Act 185, there is also increased risk that the timeline will be further delayed due to unforeseen problems that arise in operationalizing the new process.”

Schraa, Tauchen and Cowles were among seven state Republican lawmakers who wrote to the Joint Finance Committee in April asking for a delay to the proposed facility in Hortonia, saying the announcement caught residents by surprise, and concerns related to ordinances, zoning and the environment need to be addressed first.

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