Monday, Feb. 19, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
NORTH LAS VEGAS -- The proposed construction of a women's prison near residential neighborhoods and an elementary school site has come down to a showdown between homeowners and the North Las Vegas City Council.
Mike Montandon, president of the Hidden Canyon Homeowners Association, said many residents from the 615-home community were surprised to learn that a 400-bed women's prison could be built on 25 acres on the northeast corner of Commerce Street and Gowan Road, north of Cheyenne Avenue.
The prison is to be located a third of a mile from another nearby neighborhood and a quarter of a mile from the future site of an elementary school.
"It is very close to this school, and the residents didn't have a chance to voice their opinions," Montandon said. "We've got to find a better way to buffer industrial areas from residents. In my opinion, this prison is not the answer."
Don Brown, development director for the North Las Vegas Planning Commission, said notices were sent to residents in the area. But when Montandon walked through the community and talked to residents, he said none remembered being notified.
Montandon appealed the Planning Commission's prison-site approval. The North Las Vegas City Council will listen to public discussions beginning at 7 p.m. Wednesday and vote on whether to approve the site.
Montandon said he and other residents aren't opposed to the women's prison being built in North Las Vegas. They just think it should be located farther from residential areas.
Management and Training Corp., a private corporation from Ogden, Utah, is one of seven bidders hoping to win the prison contract from the Nevada Department of Prisons. MTC is the only company so far seeking to build the facility in North Las Vegas. The other bidders are suggesting areas near the city, Brown said.
"We suggested the area (zoned for general industry), but we did not specify this lot," Brown said. "If this group is sincere in providing a facility for the state of Nevada, we suggest not building it near a residential area."
But a relocation may be too late, according to Bernie Diamond, senior vice president of MTC. Howard Skolnik, assistant director of the Department of Prisons, said the $15 to $17 million project has to be completed by March 1, 1997. Diamond said MTC doesn't have enough time to find another site.
"People fear the unknown," Diamond said. "They think there will be gun towers there. Research shows that property values actually go up near a prison."
Diamond said MTC built a prison half a mile from a school in California, and there have never been any problems. He said his company would be penalized $25,000 per person in the event of an escape.
Skolnik said the Department of Prisons suggests that prisons not be built less than half a mile from schools and away from residential areas. But these are only suggestions, he said, and the only requirements are that police and fire stations and a hospital be nearby.
"They will have to build a prison that's acceptable to the community," Skolnik said. "Proposals must be submitted by March 1."
MTC has built and operated prisons in California, Texas, Arizona and Utah. The women's prison is expected to create 100 full-time jobs in administration, programming, security and business and finance. It should generate about $6 million annually in payroll, MTC says.
"We will hire locally more than 90 percent, and we will purchase supplies locally as much as we can," Diamond pledged.
Jackie Crawford, who will be director of prison operations, said residents have nothing to fear from a prison being located in their neighborhood. She said the women, who will be spending from 28 to 36 months in the prison, are very docile once they have been removed from their criminal environment.
"We would not do anything to endanger the community," Crawford said. "People (undesirable visitors) do not hang around prisons. There will be security that will patrol the roads and fenced-in areas."
Crawford said the women's prison will house felony offenders, with the offenses breaking down this way: drugs, 40 percent; property, 36 percent; and crimes against persons, 24 percent.
The prison hopes to work with criminology students from Community College of Southern Nevada, Crawford said. Inmates will be given instructions in basic remedial education, GED preparation and testing, employment skills, substance and alcohol abuse, parent and child counseling and vocational training.
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