Nevada State Prison to stay open

By Cy Ryan

Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010 | 12:07 p.m.

CARSON CITY – Gov. Jim Gibbons’ plan to shut down the 148-year-old Nevada State Prison in Carson City has been rejected again by the Legislature.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said Sunday the decision has been made to continue the prison and also the Casa Grande Transitional Center in Clark County.

The prison, one of the oldest in the United States, holds an estimated 740 inmates with several hundred staff. Plans called for shifting about 660 inmates to the High Desert State Prison in Clark County.

The reset would have been shipped to Lovelock, Ely and the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City.

“This is great news,” says Aldo Vennettilli, field services director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal employees that represent staff in the prisons.

He said it would have not only upset the officers and their families that had to be uprooted. But he said it would hurt Carson City merchants with the loss of population and business.

Buckley said previously that closing the prison would cost the state a lot more in the long run, even if it was an immediate gain.

Howard Skolnik, director of the state Department of Corrections, said he was directed to cut 10 percent of the budget. About half of the $24.7 million savings in the department would have come from closing the prison.

He said the decision to keep it open would “take a lot of pressure off the system.”

The closure would have entailed finding jobs for correctional officers at other prisons. And the senior ones could have bumped the officers who have not been on the job as long.

Casa Grande is a facility where inmates within six months of their release are housed. They have jobs and stepped up rehabilitation and counseling programs, said Skolnik.

In 1862, the Legislature decided to purchase the Warm Springs Hotel in Carson City and 20 acres for $80,000 and turn it into a prison.

The governor tried to close it in 2009 and in his message to the Legislature this special session said the prison has “outlived its usefulness. It is no longer safe and its operating costs are far too high.”

The prison used to house the high security risk inmates. But they were transferred to the prison in Ely when it was completed. The death chamber is still in Carson City where executions will continue to be carried out.