Apropos of Richardson's statement about what it means to receive the torch that is being passed to all of us, practical ways to assist in the transition pre election include our helping to get out the vote, locally and nationally; phone banking and postcard/letter writing (check out Indivisible, Swing Left, Gaslitnationpod.com action guide) have begun nationally and locally we can work to support Paula Collins in unseating Stefanik this fall.
🤚, yes I know about wts and measures, our scales for WIC participant growth assessments were checked and calibrated on the regular. On the comment of staffing, one must remember jails are open 24/7, and most shifts are 8hrs. There are CO's those that work inside, transportation, guarding while inmates are in hosp, court, maybe a funeral.,and civilian jobs (mess hall, maintenance, laundry, infirmary, education, etc.)...inmates don't do All the custodial tasks and outside work details. Closing these places will impact more than CO's.
I have posted several comments in your former paper the Post Star about this closing. What I find fascinating is the ignorance of some of the follow up comments blaming the DEMs and the Hochul for politically singling out this ancient, dangerous, costly prison to close it rather than the big picture you have outlined. It makes NO sense to continue to operate a mammoth prison with less than 1/3 of the capacity and more employees on payroll than prisoners being held. I don't know what the excess capacity is in other prisons around the state, but I'll bet the annual operating costs per prisoner for this facility are among the highest in the state, with one of the worst performance records. Sadly, Washington County was basically denied the extension of interstate 87 back in the 1950's by a decision by NY State not to fund and build a key piece of the highway due to Wash. Cty. being so rural and agriculturally based. So, Rutland VT section of the Eisenhower system has no connector running over to the greater Glens Falls region and 149 tends to be the major highway (at great expense and traffic congestion..aka the heroin highway for drug dealers delivering to VT). That has cost the county and local towns dearly for transportation access , drug and sex trafficking, and now most all of the Industrial Revolution industries are gone (GE was last really big closing). Sadly the county is run by a bunch of "good old boy" farmers and they have watched since the turn of the century as thousands of good paying jobs have been lost. A plan to deal with this closing should have been in the works years ago, but the dismal economic development efforts now will just have to accept that the northern part of the county like Whitehall will fall in to worse times than it already has. A shadow of its once great situation as a transportation hub 150 years ago with the canal and a major railroad hub, it's now a shambles where buildings have literally fallen down due to abandonment and the drug scene is horrific. No major grocery store, and when McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts close, you know the demographics of the community have hit rock bottom. Guess what? Everyone knew this prison would close at some point? It was never IF, it was WHEN, but the flat footed County Supervisors kicked the can down the road only to hit this dead end. Luckily, Irving Paper in Fort Edward is still investing to build their new warehouse. IF they shut down, that would be the largest, private, tax paying company in the county to close. While it's a beautiful rural county with lots of things to do and see, to date there is not ONE hotel in the entire county, nor ONE large restaurant that can handle 2 bus loads of tourists for a meal at the same time and get them in and out in an hour! A few motels, BnB's and a dismal future on the horizon! Why is that? NO VISION from the leaders would be a great place to start doing research.
Closing Great Meadow is a hardship for workers and their families. For those in mid career with years in the pension system but years to retirement it is especially hard. But it is no surprise the prison is closing. The primary consideration needs to be supporting the workers, the families and the neighboring communities to stabilize their populations, schools, businesses, and provide opportunity for growth.
I believe the state’s first priority needs to be helping workers transfer or transition, and at the same time provide funding to nearby communities to build out top notch broadband and cell service, maintain and improve transportation infrastructure particularly Amtrak service, promote the canal as a resource, move the Canalway bike trail off of Rt 4, provide grants and low interest funding for housing rehabilitation, small business retention and startups.
Repurposing facilities that were purposely built far from population centers is generally not feasible. There is close to nothing in Comstock other than the prisons, a prison credit union, a church that is probably closed, and a bar, some mostly unused worker housing.
The Weights and Measures story is a big deal. While some of the pricing errors found are simple mistakes others point to corporate policies particularly at dollar stores, a type of fraud that is allowed to persist because the individual sale is not large but multiplied across millions of sales at thousands of store locations it becomes significant.
The scam works like this: a customer notices a price rings up maybe 50¢ more than is posted on the shelf. The clerk say ‘sorry, the manager must have missed that.’ Next time the customer comes in the price hasn’t been changed. Darn that incompetent manager! 🙄
There is a spread sheet attached to the Weights and Measures report and you see that grocery stores perform well on accurate pricing, but dollar stores are atrocious - fleecing customers who are often lower income or people in remote areas without many options.
It seems to me the names of the stores should be posted just as the alcohol sakes checks are.
NYS has requirements regarding the posting of prices, but I have seen violations all over the place. I don't think the Department responsible for enforcement is doing a very good job.
I do feel bad for the people employed at Great Meadow, particularly the way they found out about the closing. The employees should have been the first to be told. I read they have all been offered jobs in the other remaining prisons, but the decision to relocate is not easy, and they don’t have much time to make arrangements. I also feel bad for the inmates if conditions are as awful as it was reported. The local high muckety-mucks said that Great Meadow had a good mental health program for inmates and that closing it was short-sighted. Oh, for a good local newspaper with hard-nosed reporters on the job to do a little digging into that!
Closing the prison will have a detrimental effect on the economy here, obviously, but some of the same voices bemoaning that fact are also the same ones castigating the State for its high taxes and wasteful spending. One person’s vital government program is always someone else’s boondoggle. The State runs the prisons, and it has decided some are no longer needed. I’m sure every upstate town with a prison as its biggest employer would be hurting the same way if their prison closed. It’s just Washington County’s bad luck, maybe. Or maybe the prison really is poorly run and the State knew it. I can’t say, but I do agree that losing the prison, while extremely painful in the short term, may end up being a good thing if it forces the county to look for different and varied economic engines to power our economy.
Ken wrote: “…local Assemblyman Matt Siimpson said closing the prison was "unwise" and state Sen. Dan Stec posted on his official state Senate webpage: "Don't Close Great Meadow."
It’s been part of Republican DNA for decades to advocate for fewer state programs, less state spending, lower state taxes, and reduce wasteful spending. We hear it from local and state-level Republicans repeatedly — cut waste.
So when the state does cut waste, the hue and cry comes from the very same politicians who decried that waste to begin with.
It is a good point. Members of Congress from both parties will not address wasted spending in the military because that wasted spending might be in their district.
And, to be fair, there’s waste and fraud in some programs that Democrats support, such as Medicare and Medicaid, that need to be better addressed. (Addressing fraud and waste in social programs should be a progressive value just as much as it is a conservative value. Every dollar in Medicare and Medicaid lost to fraud and waste is a dollar not spent to help the vulnerable and our elders.)
This a disgraceful article written by someone who clearly neglected to gather factual information!!
You can get your facts and statistics on the nys doccs website on all NY prisons do to you being well un-informed. The amount of staff needed at Great Meadow is do to the needs of the inmates housed there. They are the largest OMH and special housing prison in the state.
One of the things you didn't mention is that Great Meadow is in the boondocks and since most inmates are from urban areas, this made family visitation very difficult. At the same time prisoners who maintain strong family ties are less likely to reoffend after release.
It's disgraceful how long these prisons lay shuttered, not paying property taxes and not generating any revenue or jobs or housing for the towns. Mt McGregor has been closed for 10 years and nothing's happened to it, other than it falling into disrepair. I know it's too much to expect for a badly governed state like NYS but no prison should be closed until a concrete plan is developed to redevelop the property or turn it over to the private sector. It should include a specific timeline, PILOTs paid by the state to the town until the transition is complete. The prisons were a deal: the state provides decent middle class jobs in exchange for free land. If the state is going to back out of its part of the bargain, then it should return the free land or otherwise pay for it. The prison-industrial complex was a substitute for a sustainable economic development program for rural NYS. If you're going to shrink it - and we should - then maybe we need to come up with a sustainable replacement. Just shuttering the prisons with no alternative plan in place is a big middle finger to the communities whose members were expected to keep in line the worst of the worst.
Quite a scene today at the Great Meadow Correctional Facility. It is gut-wrenching on both sides. For the inmates, my hope is that somehow, somewhere, there is a better facility for them, and that one day, they will be released to return to their communities. For the employees, who probably hate their jobs, my hope is that the state will step in with a career counseling program, and the opportunity to train for new work. The greater issue, of course, is poverty. Poverty is what landed many of the inmates in the so-called "correctional" system. That, and untreated mental health issues. For the guards, poverty, and its accompanying frustration, is what made it so that the best job available drove them to beat and humiliate other humans. Stefanik was out there today, blabbing about the "Far Left" policies that converged to make this business decision. Poverty and mental health should not be a partisan issue.
Our incarceration-industrial complex is an abomination. Cruel and inhuman. Good riddance.
Apropos of Richardson's statement about what it means to receive the torch that is being passed to all of us, practical ways to assist in the transition pre election include our helping to get out the vote, locally and nationally; phone banking and postcard/letter writing (check out Indivisible, Swing Left, Gaslitnationpod.com action guide) have begun nationally and locally we can work to support Paula Collins in unseating Stefanik this fall.
Thank you for the mention, Lisa. Let me know if we can get you some postcards to send to NY-21 voters.
Ken yes I agree with Heather Cox Richardson that the torch had been handed to us to work for and elect our next President,
🤚, yes I know about wts and measures, our scales for WIC participant growth assessments were checked and calibrated on the regular. On the comment of staffing, one must remember jails are open 24/7, and most shifts are 8hrs. There are CO's those that work inside, transportation, guarding while inmates are in hosp, court, maybe a funeral.,and civilian jobs (mess hall, maintenance, laundry, infirmary, education, etc.)...inmates don't do All the custodial tasks and outside work details. Closing these places will impact more than CO's.
I have posted several comments in your former paper the Post Star about this closing. What I find fascinating is the ignorance of some of the follow up comments blaming the DEMs and the Hochul for politically singling out this ancient, dangerous, costly prison to close it rather than the big picture you have outlined. It makes NO sense to continue to operate a mammoth prison with less than 1/3 of the capacity and more employees on payroll than prisoners being held. I don't know what the excess capacity is in other prisons around the state, but I'll bet the annual operating costs per prisoner for this facility are among the highest in the state, with one of the worst performance records. Sadly, Washington County was basically denied the extension of interstate 87 back in the 1950's by a decision by NY State not to fund and build a key piece of the highway due to Wash. Cty. being so rural and agriculturally based. So, Rutland VT section of the Eisenhower system has no connector running over to the greater Glens Falls region and 149 tends to be the major highway (at great expense and traffic congestion..aka the heroin highway for drug dealers delivering to VT). That has cost the county and local towns dearly for transportation access , drug and sex trafficking, and now most all of the Industrial Revolution industries are gone (GE was last really big closing). Sadly the county is run by a bunch of "good old boy" farmers and they have watched since the turn of the century as thousands of good paying jobs have been lost. A plan to deal with this closing should have been in the works years ago, but the dismal economic development efforts now will just have to accept that the northern part of the county like Whitehall will fall in to worse times than it already has. A shadow of its once great situation as a transportation hub 150 years ago with the canal and a major railroad hub, it's now a shambles where buildings have literally fallen down due to abandonment and the drug scene is horrific. No major grocery store, and when McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts close, you know the demographics of the community have hit rock bottom. Guess what? Everyone knew this prison would close at some point? It was never IF, it was WHEN, but the flat footed County Supervisors kicked the can down the road only to hit this dead end. Luckily, Irving Paper in Fort Edward is still investing to build their new warehouse. IF they shut down, that would be the largest, private, tax paying company in the county to close. While it's a beautiful rural county with lots of things to do and see, to date there is not ONE hotel in the entire county, nor ONE large restaurant that can handle 2 bus loads of tourists for a meal at the same time and get them in and out in an hour! A few motels, BnB's and a dismal future on the horizon! Why is that? NO VISION from the leaders would be a great place to start doing research.
Closing Great Meadow is a hardship for workers and their families. For those in mid career with years in the pension system but years to retirement it is especially hard. But it is no surprise the prison is closing. The primary consideration needs to be supporting the workers, the families and the neighboring communities to stabilize their populations, schools, businesses, and provide opportunity for growth.
I believe the state’s first priority needs to be helping workers transfer or transition, and at the same time provide funding to nearby communities to build out top notch broadband and cell service, maintain and improve transportation infrastructure particularly Amtrak service, promote the canal as a resource, move the Canalway bike trail off of Rt 4, provide grants and low interest funding for housing rehabilitation, small business retention and startups.
Repurposing facilities that were purposely built far from population centers is generally not feasible. There is close to nothing in Comstock other than the prisons, a prison credit union, a church that is probably closed, and a bar, some mostly unused worker housing.
The Weights and Measures story is a big deal. While some of the pricing errors found are simple mistakes others point to corporate policies particularly at dollar stores, a type of fraud that is allowed to persist because the individual sale is not large but multiplied across millions of sales at thousands of store locations it becomes significant.
The scam works like this: a customer notices a price rings up maybe 50¢ more than is posted on the shelf. The clerk say ‘sorry, the manager must have missed that.’ Next time the customer comes in the price hasn’t been changed. Darn that incompetent manager! 🙄
There is a spread sheet attached to the Weights and Measures report and you see that grocery stores perform well on accurate pricing, but dollar stores are atrocious - fleecing customers who are often lower income or people in remote areas without many options.
It seems to me the names of the stores should be posted just as the alcohol sakes checks are.
Thanks for adding more detail.
NYS has requirements regarding the posting of prices, but I have seen violations all over the place. I don't think the Department responsible for enforcement is doing a very good job.
I do feel bad for the people employed at Great Meadow, particularly the way they found out about the closing. The employees should have been the first to be told. I read they have all been offered jobs in the other remaining prisons, but the decision to relocate is not easy, and they don’t have much time to make arrangements. I also feel bad for the inmates if conditions are as awful as it was reported. The local high muckety-mucks said that Great Meadow had a good mental health program for inmates and that closing it was short-sighted. Oh, for a good local newspaper with hard-nosed reporters on the job to do a little digging into that!
Closing the prison will have a detrimental effect on the economy here, obviously, but some of the same voices bemoaning that fact are also the same ones castigating the State for its high taxes and wasteful spending. One person’s vital government program is always someone else’s boondoggle. The State runs the prisons, and it has decided some are no longer needed. I’m sure every upstate town with a prison as its biggest employer would be hurting the same way if their prison closed. It’s just Washington County’s bad luck, maybe. Or maybe the prison really is poorly run and the State knew it. I can’t say, but I do agree that losing the prison, while extremely painful in the short term, may end up being a good thing if it forces the county to look for different and varied economic engines to power our economy.
Ken wrote: “…local Assemblyman Matt Siimpson said closing the prison was "unwise" and state Sen. Dan Stec posted on his official state Senate webpage: "Don't Close Great Meadow."
It’s been part of Republican DNA for decades to advocate for fewer state programs, less state spending, lower state taxes, and reduce wasteful spending. We hear it from local and state-level Republicans repeatedly — cut waste.
So when the state does cut waste, the hue and cry comes from the very same politicians who decried that waste to begin with.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.
It is a good point. Members of Congress from both parties will not address wasted spending in the military because that wasted spending might be in their district.
And, to be fair, there’s waste and fraud in some programs that Democrats support, such as Medicare and Medicaid, that need to be better addressed. (Addressing fraud and waste in social programs should be a progressive value just as much as it is a conservative value. Every dollar in Medicare and Medicaid lost to fraud and waste is a dollar not spent to help the vulnerable and our elders.)
Absolutely!
I should hope that Republicans also support Medicare and Medicaid.
Just stop with the lies.
Undocumented immigrants do not receive Medicare or Medicaid.
Nobody says where the prisoners are going. Some opponents say the prisoners will set them free.
Meant to say the prisoner will be set free probably.
This a disgraceful article written by someone who clearly neglected to gather factual information!!
You can get your facts and statistics on the nys doccs website on all NY prisons do to you being well un-informed. The amount of staff needed at Great Meadow is do to the needs of the inmates housed there. They are the largest OMH and special housing prison in the state.
One of the things you didn't mention is that Great Meadow is in the boondocks and since most inmates are from urban areas, this made family visitation very difficult. At the same time prisoners who maintain strong family ties are less likely to reoffend after release.
It's disgraceful how long these prisons lay shuttered, not paying property taxes and not generating any revenue or jobs or housing for the towns. Mt McGregor has been closed for 10 years and nothing's happened to it, other than it falling into disrepair. I know it's too much to expect for a badly governed state like NYS but no prison should be closed until a concrete plan is developed to redevelop the property or turn it over to the private sector. It should include a specific timeline, PILOTs paid by the state to the town until the transition is complete. The prisons were a deal: the state provides decent middle class jobs in exchange for free land. If the state is going to back out of its part of the bargain, then it should return the free land or otherwise pay for it. The prison-industrial complex was a substitute for a sustainable economic development program for rural NYS. If you're going to shrink it - and we should - then maybe we need to come up with a sustainable replacement. Just shuttering the prisons with no alternative plan in place is a big middle finger to the communities whose members were expected to keep in line the worst of the worst.
And before anyone misrepresents my comments. For me the issue is not should we right size the prison system. The issue is how.
Poorly misinformed! The facility has a multimillion dollar surveillance system. “Beatings” can not happen.
Quite a scene today at the Great Meadow Correctional Facility. It is gut-wrenching on both sides. For the inmates, my hope is that somehow, somewhere, there is a better facility for them, and that one day, they will be released to return to their communities. For the employees, who probably hate their jobs, my hope is that the state will step in with a career counseling program, and the opportunity to train for new work. The greater issue, of course, is poverty. Poverty is what landed many of the inmates in the so-called "correctional" system. That, and untreated mental health issues. For the guards, poverty, and its accompanying frustration, is what made it so that the best job available drove them to beat and humiliate other humans. Stefanik was out there today, blabbing about the "Far Left" policies that converged to make this business decision. Poverty and mental health should not be a partisan issue.
Pathetic. Go misuse some more campaign funds.