Pontiac Daily Leader by John Faddoul

Livingston County’s members of the General Assembly were among the first elected officials to testify at Wednesday’s hearing about the potential closing of Pontiac’s prison, and the two state representatives targeted their comments directly to Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Testifying before the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, whose members are their colleagues in the House and Senate, Reps. Keith Sommer and Shane Cultra said the prison should remain open, the latter using the refrain, “Governor, what are you thinking.”

Those two Republicans, Sens. Dan Rutherford, R-Chenoa, and Gary Dahl, R-Granville, and Rep. Jim Sacia, R-Pecatonica, were the members of the General Assembly who testified during the elected officials part of the agenda of the public hearing, immediately after Department of Corrections Director Roger E. Walker Jr. outlined his reasons for wanting to close PCC.

All the legislators who testified after him favored keeping Pontiac Correctional Center open, and Rutherford was among those who said the new prison, Thomson, where PCC’s inmates would potentially be moved also should open — to relieve overcrowding in the state’s penal system.

Speaking first, Sommer, of Mackinaw and representing the west side of Pontiac and Livingston County, noted that months ago he invited the governor to visit Pontiac, a remark that drew laughter from the audience filling the auditorium at Pontiac Township High School.

“”I didn’t mean that to be funny,” Sommer said, renewing the invitation.

If Blagojevich came here and walked the corridors of the prison — and got to know the area and the lives put on line with a prison closing — “maybe we’d be doing something different tonight,” Sommer said. He asked the governor “to find a solution to this dilemma.”

Sommer noted that he drove Old Route 66 into Pontiac to attend the COGFA hearing, and saw a sign denoting Pontiac as a 2007 winner of a Governor’s Home Town Award.

“What happened in a year?” he asked. Sommer pointed out that District 6 state police headquarters and a new county jail had been built next to the prison, creating “a model for law enforcement and public safety.”

He also noted the “tough decisions” and “a lot of numbers” that DOC’s Walker and Blagojevich are looking at in the closing of the prison. “Governor, these people here are not numbers,” he said, asking that “working together” in Springfield would allow PCC to remain open.

“We can solve this dilemma; let’s do it,” he said, adding that the people of Pontiac and the state deserve better, and saying his last words of testimony: “Governor, save Pontiac prison.”

Speaking next, Cultra, from Onarga and whose 105th District includes the east side of Pontiac and of the county, recalled that “not so long ago” Blagojevich proposed closing the Vandalia prison, and more recently the Roundhouse section of Stateville Correctional Center — leading to his first use of “Governor, what are you thinking.”

Cultra noted the impact of the loss of 569 jobs in a city of 11,000 residents, and the impact of that on the housing market here.

Cultra noted that under the State Facility Closure Act the governor can do “whatever he wants to do,” but concluding, “Governor, what the hell are you thinking.”

Rutherford, whose 53rd Senate District includes both the Pontiac and Dwight prisons, testified to his colleagues on COGFA that Pontiac Correctional Center is “a perfectly good, safe, functioning facility” — and that the Department of Corrections is at 135 percent of capacity. He noted that he was among the legislators who voted to building the maximum-security prison at Tamms.

He also noted that he supported the building — and the opening — of Thomson Correctional Center to relieve pressure on the state’s other prisons. He did not vote for that just so prisoners could be moved “from Point A to Point B,” he said.

“You have over 2,000 people from central Illinois coming out here to see you personally,” Rutherford told the 12 COGFA members, who saw a full auditorium before them and knew that hundreds more were in the PTHS commons and gym listening to the hearing.

“Don’t destroy our community, please,” the senator concluded in ending his testimony.

Dahl, whose 38th Senate District is immediately north of Rutherford’s 53rd, said he was at the hearing to show support for keeping PCC open.

Rep. Sacia, whose 89th District is in the northwest corner of the state and contains Thomson prison, shares office space with Sommer in Springfield. He said Thomson was not built to replace any other prison in the state.

“I am here to stand with you in the continuation” of PCC, he said.