LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Since Nebraska’s new $350 million prison was announced last week, city and county officials say they’ve received numerous calls with concerns.
The state plans to build the replacement for the state penitentiary just outside Lincoln near 112th and Adams streets.
Christa Yoakum, chair of the Lancaster County Board, said that’s technically not in the county’s jurisdiction.
“It really is in the city’s 3-mile jurisdiction,” she said. “But it would’ve been polite, it would’ve been considerate to have had a conversation with us, to have involved us in some way.”
Yoakum said in a process that affects so many people, “transparency, community engagement and engagement in other stakeholders is really important.”
Lincoln City Councilman James Michael Bowers, who represents the northeast district, said that he’s disappointed in the way the governor’s office has handled the process and that the lack of transparency is concerning.
“No one from Gov. Pillen’s office reached out to me,” he said. “I had no idea that there was going to be a proposal for a prison to be put into northeast Lincoln.”
Yoakum and Bowers said their constituents have called about the prison being too close to schools, affecting property values and limiting economic development in the northeast corner of the city.
“I think a lot of people’s fears could’ve been addressed … if a community conversation and community input could’ve happened beforehand,” Bowers said. “But that has been taken from northeast Lincolnites.”
Corrections Director Rob Jeffreys has said the location was selected due to its easy access to Interstate 80 for future employees and inmates’ families.
Overcrowding in state prisons has also been a problem for years, and backers of the new prison say the 300 additional beds in the new facility will help.
SEE ALSO: Nonprofit says spending $1 million to move Lancaster County inmates won’t fix overcrowding
But Yoakum and Bowers said it hurts taxpayers to build new prisons, rather than finding ways to reduce the number of people in the system.
“The criminal justice system on a whole, in the state and across the country, really needs to be looked at and examined,” Yoakum said. “Are we putting the right people into our prison system?”
Bowers plans to invite Pillen and Jeffreys to his monthly town hall meetings so they can speak to residents directly.
“I have had folks that had a lot of questions and a lot of concerns,” he said.
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