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Franklin County residents urge lawmakers to delay Mill Creek Mountain prison site over water, workforce and transparency concerns
Summary
Residents and Franklin County advocates told the Senate Children and Youth Committee the Mill Creek Mountain site is poorly suited for a proposed 3,000-bed prison, citing an inadequate site study, water and emergency-services limits, workforce shortfalls and disputed FOIA records; lawmakers asked for follow-ups, and no vote was taken.
NATALIE CADENA, a representative of the Franklin County and River Valley Coalition, told the Senate Children and Youth Committee on Friday that her group is "resolutely opposed" to building a prison on Mill Creek Mountain and urged lawmakers to delay further spending until a full site assessment is completed.
"We would not be standing here today if we did not fully believe that building a prison on Mill Creek Mountain is bad for all Arkansans," Cadena said in a prepared presentation that included maps, cost estimates and local testimony. She told the committee the state paid nearly $3,000,000 for the parcel and that the site's karst geology, thin labor shed and limited emergency-services capacity make it ill-suited for a facility of the scale being discussed.
Cadena argued the site study relied on by officials was incomplete and that the engineering and water analyses did not reflect local conditions. She said the presentation…
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