Editor’s note: Dr. Arthur Donart is a Trustee on the Thomson, IL, Village Board. He was present when the following announcement was made in Thomson, Tuesday, October 2, 2012. Dr. Donart submitted the photo to capture the occasion. The first three men seated left-to-right are U. S. Senator Richard Durbin, Village President Jerry Hebeler, and Governor Patrick Quinn.
At 2:00 p.m. today Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and United States Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, showed up at the Thomson, IL, Village Hall, to inform Village President Jerry “Duke” Hebeler that the Federal Government is now the owner of the maximum security prison located one mile north of Thomson.
In announcing the sale, Senator Durbin stated that they had been working on it for three years….[He added] that one Congressman, Republican Frank Wolf of Virginia, three times refused to sign off on the Federal Bureau of Prisons surplus of funds to buy the prison. Senator Durbin then informed President Obama of the problem. He said it was the President who finally got the arrangements made for the sale without Congressman Wolf’s consent.
Durbin said, “President Obama hasn’t forgotten Northwest Illinois, and when I talked to him, he knew where the prison was located. This will bring several hundred construction jobs to the area to bring the facility up to Federal Standards. Once it is open, it will bring about a thousand new jobs to the area.”
Asked what the State of Illinois will do with the $165 million dollars the State received for the prison, Governor Quinn replied, “I will ask the General Assembly to allow me to use the funds to pay the State’s bills. Illinois owes a lot of venders and they’d like to be paid.” He thanked Senator Durbin for his dogged effort to get the sale completed.
Village President Hebeler thanked Senator Durbin and Governor Quinn for their efforts on behalf the Village of Thomson. He mentioned that this had been a persistent three-year effort, and he was happy that it finally paid off.
The construction of the Thomson prison was authorized by Governor Jim Edgar and construction was completed on time under Governor George Ryan in 2001, but it was never opened as a maximum-security prison. For a few years it housed a little over a hundred minimum-security prisoners that were used mainly to keep up the grounds.
Now, Thomson awaits passage of a new Federal Budget–hoping money will be appropriated to bring it up to standards and open it up.