A New Era of Government:

Executive Orders and Closed

Door Negotiations
Why Has The Governor's Office Not Released An Environmental Impact
Study For The Proposed Bibb County Prison

By
Mike Hobson
-
March 17, 2021

In early February during a budget hearing before the Alabama Legislature State
Reps. Rich Wingo (R-Tuscaloosa) and Arnold Mooney (R-Indian Springs) called
on Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn to reveal more
details about Gov. Kay Ivey’s plan to lease three new mega-prison facilities.

At the time, just days before she signed two of the three 30-year lease
agreements, Dunn had said the Ivey administration was working with legislative
leadership to provide details, adding that the confidentiality of negotiations
justified the current lack of transparency.

Wingo said then that he was not totally opposed to the business proposition but
“what I am opposed to is just the lack of transparency. I’ve asked for over six
months numerous people that are in the position to give me the answers that I
want — to just simply provide me what is the developer, what’s his profit,
what’s his return on costs. ”
The Ivey administration released Request for Proposals for New Correctional
Facilities through a lease agreement arrangement on December 6, 2019 with
proposals due from qualified contractors by April 30, 2020. The RFP’s contained
little information about the projects, did not identify site locations or contractors
but news leaked out pretty quickly that one of the sites would be in Bibb
County. The original RFP’s showed that the capacity of the 3 prisons
would be 10,162 beds.

By February 1 Al.com summarized the known facts about the prison projects
after the Governor signed two of the prison lease contracts, as follows:

• The prison in Escambia County will be near Atmore and the Wind Creek
Casino, on the south side of Interstate 65, on Bell Fork Road. There are
two prisons nearby, Holman and Fountain, which are north of I-65.
• The prison in Elmore County will be in Tallassee on Rifle Range Road.
There are two men’s prisons in western Elmore County, Elmore and
Staton, while Tallassee is on the east side of the county.
• The Elmore and Escambia county prisons will hold a total of about
7,000 inmates. The third prison, in Bibb County, will hold about 3,000.
The total of about 10,000 is more than half of Alabama’s inmate
 population. The state had about 17,000 male inmates in November,
according to the Alabama Department of Corrections’ most recent
monthly report.
• Some of Alabama’s 13 men’s prisons will close, although those have
not been named. A repurposing commission appointed by Ivey will help
decide.
• The Elmore County prison will be designed to provide care for inmates
with medical and mental health problems.
• Construction on the Elmore County prison is expected to start this
year. Construction on the Escambia county prison is expected to start
in late 2021 or early 2022.
• The prisons are expected to be ready to use in 2025.
• A private developer group led by CoreCivic will finance, build, and
maintain the prisons in Elmore and Escambia counties. The group
includes CoreCivic; Caddell Construction; DLR Group; and R&N
Systems Design.
• The Ivey administration and the ADOC are in negotiations with
Alabama Prison Transformation Partners for the third prison, which will
be in the Brierfield community in Bibb County, near Montevallo.
Alabama Prison Transformation Partners includes Star America; BL
Harbert International; Butler-Cohen; Arrington Watkins Architects; and
Johnson Controls, Inc..
• The state will lease the three prisons for 30 years. Final terms have not
been disclosed. The state will begin paying the leases when the prisons
are ready to use.

The Governor’s use of her Executive Authority and not incidentally her decision
to negotiate leases behind closed doors without the involvement of the state
legislature has not been without criticism or controversy.

During an interview that aired on a recent broadcast of Alabama Public

Television’s “Capitol Journal,” Gov. Kay Ivey seemingly dismissed members of
the Alabama Legislature considering efforts to add a check to executive
authority during an emergency as Alabama approaches a year of being under a
health state of emergency for COVID-19.

Ivey seemed to downplay two bills, one sponsored by State Rep. Becky
Nordgren (R-Gadsden), which would allow the legislature to call itself into
session. The other bill, led by State Sen. Tom Whatley (R-Auburn), would limit
the length of a state of emergency and the state health officer’s power.

“I know they’ve been introduced, and the legislature always likes to have their
time and their say, and that’s fine — but in an emergency, you don’t need
a herd of turtles gathering to make an emergency decision,” Ivey said when
asked by Alabama Public Television’s Don Dailey.

The Alabama Policy Institute jumped in on that remark with a tweet that read:
“The power to call the legislature into special session was vested in her office,
but she chose not to do so. Now we know that it was because she does not
deem [the legislature] as necessary to the processes of governance.”

This little firestorm was followed up by the Alabama House of Representatives

passing HB 392, sponsored by Rep. Mike Jones (R-Andalusia). Jones’ bill creates
a joint legislative committee to oversee large financial agreements made by the
executive branch

The legislation from Jones, chair of the powerful Rules Committee, would create
the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Obligation Transparency. The
committee would have the authority to approve or disapprove of contracts,
leases and agreements by the executive branch and the agencies therein.
Under the proposed law the committee would meet to review any financial
agreement greater than $10 million or 5% of the agency’s annual appropriation
from the State General Fund.

Making up the committee would be the chair, vice-chair and ranking minority
members of the committees in each legislative chamber that oversee taxation.
This bill is presently making its way through the legislative process.

Meanwhile, the Ivey administration is still keeping the Bibb County project
details under wraps. Recently Deputy Prison Commissioner Jeff Williams
responded to a question about prison capacity from Attorney Joel Sogol in a
[March 5, 2021] Sentencing Commission Hearing:

• Attorney Joel Sogol: “Am I correct Jeff that the three prisons being
considered for the lease, all they’re going to do is replace existing
beds, they’re not going to expand capacity at all, isn’t that correct?
 • DC Jeff Williams: “Actually the intent is to expand capacity..the general
design capacity that the department has been operating under is
roughly 13,400. And the goal out of this project is to raise that into the
vicinity of 16,000 beds. While we have always recognized that these
facilities would not completely eliminate overcrowding, it would
ultimately expand our existing design capacity. In addition to that,
these facilities will have some expansion capabilities by 1,000 beds in
each of the facilities.”

Everybody who is still reading should take note of that last part.

So far most people see the Bibb County prison as a Brierfield issue.

President Joe Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and legislative efforts such as HR-1
have proposed granting voting rights to incarcerated individuals, regardless of
their crimes.

The Alabama Department Corrections is moving towards creating a prison

facility in Bibb County that could house more than 4,000 inmates. The current
Brent facility could be re-purposed to house up to 2,500 female prisoners.

The population of such a facility would easily be larger than the population of
any of the 4 towns in Bibb County.

Bibb County has 14,992 registered voters. In typical elections the vote turnout
is less than 30% which means about 4,500 voters show up at the polls or vote
absentee. It was higher for the 2020 Trump election but that was atypical.
President Joe Biden signs stack of executive orders on his first day in the Oval Office

This has gone on a little too long so let’s drive towards a conclusion. In a short
time span we have cycled, at the federal and state levels, from a government of
the people, one that acts with the consent of the governed, to a near monarchy,
one that acts with unbridled power, with powers unchecked by the legislative
branch. That is not what we learned in our civics classes about how government
is to operate.

Governor Ivey has bulled her way forward towards building a facility in Bibb
County without answering any of the questions from the people who live here.
There have been no public meetings hosted by public officials prepared to
answer the public’s questions. Only Silence.

While well drilling rigs drive around on the property [near Ashby Baptist Church]
that no one will admit is the proposed site for the project in Bibb County and
reportedly fail to locate an aquifer that can supply the needed water for a 4,000
population self-contained city that ADOC has described, quiet negotiations
continue with nearby municipalities to buy water for the project. And no one
has offered to produce an environmental impact study for the Cahaba
River watershed.
Recently April Weaver, a former State Representative and now a candidate to
fill the Senate seat vacated by Cam Ward wrote to Governor Ivey about the
transparency issue. Weaver invited the Governor to hold a Town Hall meeting to
answer questions and discuss the prison issue with Bibb County constituents.

Weaver is right. Governor Ivey may not have to answer to the legislature. But
she does owe the citizens of Bibb County the courtesy of answering a few
important questions.

When I was Mayor of the City of Centreville [2012-2016] we considered building

a public boat launch on the Cahaba River South of the Howard Cooper Bridge,
with the co-operation of a willing landowner and a pre-approved federal grant.
We ran into environmental impact study requirements imposed by state
agencies, including Alabama Fish & Wildlife and ADEM. The project was shelved
due to those projected and unforeseeable costs.

In 2018 another local group undertook to build a canoe launch and make
improvements to the Cahaba Riverwalk area near the Bibb County Chamber of
Commerce. That group has succeeded with their project, but in the process has
been required to engage the services of an environmental engineering
consultant to perform environmental impact surveys and obtain concurrence
reviews from Fish & Wildlife. All in order to launch a canoe.

This leads me to think it may be easier to build a town the size of a 4,000 bed
prison [environmentally speaking] than to build a canoe launch. The proposition
is usually simple. Build anything that may affect the Cahaba River you must
satisfy environmental concerns first……..unless of course you have unlimited
executive authority.

So Governor Ivey. Your project will build a town bigger than any we presently
have in this county. Shouldn’t you have to show us your environmental impact
study before you sign a 30 year obligation that binds the taxpayers and starts a
construction project that will impact the Cahaba River watershed?
If you have no regard for the citizens Governor, think of the turtles.

NOTICE: The Opinions Expressed in this Editorial are the Opinions of the
writer and not necessarily the views of the Bibb Voice or its editorial
board. Your comments are invited & welcomed.