Windsor —
“We have a plan to close it and transfer each inmate,” Scott said. “This move will save $3.5 million. And, as we have in the past, we’ll work to move frontline employees into existing vacancies.”
Windsor Town Manager Tom Marsh said the bigger question for him is what the state would do with the buildings and grounds.
“It could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing,” Marsh said on Tuesday. “It really depends on creating a plan moving forward.”
Marsh said closing the facility and simply abandoning the buildings has the potential to lead to problems.
“We don’t want to tell the state how to run its penal system but if we can talk about repurposing the buildings, that could be good. So it depends on what they do afterward. That is really my concern,” Marsh said.
In his budget address, Scott said the Windsor facility has the highest per-capita costs of any male facility in the state.
Messages left for the Governor’s Office regarding the plan and when Scott would expect the prison to close were not immediately returned.
Marsh said the town receives $175,000 from the state under a Payment in Lieu of Taxes arrangement for all state-owned land in Windsor, and that would continue even if the prison closed.
State Rep. John Bartholomew, D-Hartland, whose district includes Windsor, said his initial reaction was that the closing would “not be a good thing for Windsor,” but added that he would keep an open mind and would wait to hear from residents.
Bartholomew said he wants to speak with constituents to better understand their feelings toward the prison and the proposal to close it.
“Some may say ‘no problem;’ others may think it would be the end of the world,” he said. “I’m not sure how constituents fall on it or what to make of it.”
The prison has operated since the 1970s, after the old state prison on State Street closed. That building was converted to the Olde Windsor Village apartments.
In 2015, a plan to close the correctional facility on County Road was pulled from the budget bill at the last minute by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The prison was in the news a year ago when a 19,000-panel solar array was proposed by Green Mountain Power. Eventually GMP withdrew its plans after the Selectboard, under pressure from a group of residents, voted 5-0 to oppose the project. About the same time, most of the 900-acre prison property — save for the roughly 140 acres of prison land — was transferred to Vermont Fish and Wildlife from the Department of Building and General Services. Later, the 40 acres for the solar array also were placed under the jurisdiction of Fish and Wildlife.
Mike Quinn, a vocal opponent of the solar project, said on Tuesday that closing the prison may not be a “bad thing,” especially since Fish and Wildlife will be managing most of the property.
“There is untapped opportunity there,” Quinn said. “It seems like a solid, functioning facility. There have been water supply upgrades and fiber optics added. So how do you turn it into a new use? It will need some creative thinking.”
Selectboard member Clayton Paronto said he was “a little surprised” to hear the proposal from Marsh at Tuesday night’s Selectboard meeting because it has been mentioned previously.
Paronto said he agrees with Marsh, that if it does close, Windsor should have a “seat at the table” when the state discusses what to do with the property and buildings.
Paronto also said he would like to see the state turn the facility into a vocational center for some of the state’s inmates.
“Instead of closing it, make it into something really productive,” Paronto said.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
