This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The governor's newly reformed Prison Relocation and Development Board held its first meeting June 12. The board was "reformed" to conduct a feasibility study using mythical, creative accounting techniques to convince poor, dumb taxpayers to believe that tearing down the Draper prison and building a five-star prison in the West Desert will benefit all residents of the state.

After all, the new facility could very well provide an experience so rewarding and beneficial that an inmate would not want to leave. The main benefit will actually be to provide developers the 700 acres of valuable land the prison now occupies in order to build McMansions. I'll bet the board will surely come up with many ways the prison proposal will benefit all of us. But the "in" crowd will be the only beneficiaries. You and I will suffer a tax increase.

This entire scheme is political nonsense. That's why a board sympathetic to moving the prison has been hand-picked. Let's stop the politicians and developers from exploiting the taxpayers, because next they'll want to move the zoo for the same reasons!

Donald J. Justesen

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