KELLAMS: Debate continues over a proposed prison in western Arkansas. State lawmakers heard nearly four hours of testimony yesterday about a controversial plan for the new prison.
The proposed 3,000-bed prison in the west Arkansas city of Charleston has drawn widespread criticism from residents, lawmakers and others.
In a legislative committee meeting yesterday, Charleston resident Adam Watson cited the legislature's repeated votes to block funding for the project.
WATSON: The state finds itself here today five failed votes short of funding and all but begging for a design contract that has already slashed criteria to cut unnecessarily bloated costs, rather than a design based on the state's needs and at serious odds with the very community in which it will desperately need to patrol these cells.
KELLAMS: Watson says the site lacks proper resources, workforce, and connections to utilities and transportation infrastructure that would be necessary to support a prison.
Republican state Sen. Jimmy Hickey says a new prison is needed, but that it's clear the state's preferred location is the wrong move.
HICKEY: I'm trying to figure out a way to vote for the appropriation, and all I do is get further and further and further away. And it's not that I want to be hard. I don't think that, unlike a lot of people right now, that we've made a boondoggle. I don't think that it is a train wreck. I think that we've merely made a misstep, and somebody needs to say we've made a misstep.
KELLAMS: The state has already spent $3 million to secure the parcel of land in Franklin County.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
