By james art 
Pierre – Lincoln County may not be the place of a new prison after all.
But this will not be decided by this summer.
Governor Larry Born Signs an Executive Order for the Establishment of a Working Group, which will reassess the plan of the Ministry of Correction (DOC) to build a correctional facility on 1500 beds south of Harisburg for a special legislative session in July to make a final decision.
“This working group is our reset button. Everything that came before is in the rearview mirror. From now on, we are looking forward to it, “Rodin said during a morning press conference in Capitol on Thursday.
The announcement acknowledges a major opposition to the state legislators and comes after legislators have rejected the cost bill, which would be the last funding required to continue the $ 825 million prison. And with the requirement of two-thirds of the State House and the Senate to abandon the distribution of these dollars, it becomes less and less likely that the dock and the governor can win approval for the draft from this year’s state legislator.
“We have received the announcement that the current prison plan will not enter this legislative session,” Rodin said, adding that the group will have the task of determining whether a new prison is needed, how big it should be and where it should go.
Calling the “Reset Project Prison initiative”, Rodin said the first of these questions should be the simplest to answer, since “almost everyone” understands that there is a need to replace the aging penitentiary of the state in Siu Falls. However, there is no consensus on the site and the scope of a new correctional facility, a reality to which the group – a combination of legislators and other stakeholders – will work to deal, he said.
Resetting the prison of the project will include eight chamber members, seven senators and at least seven others. Panel’s legislators include speaker John Hansen, the leader of the majority House Scott Odenbach, the speaker Pro Tempore Karla Lms, Reps. Senate members include Senate President Pro Tempor Chris Carr, the leader of the Senate majority Jim Melhaf, Sens. Erni Oten, Mark Lumpka, Steve Kolbeck and Joy Hong, along with Senate’s Material Assistant Lider Jamie Smith. Lieutenant Tony Venhuyzen will be chairman of the group, who will also include public safety, judicial and mental health staff.
To help them, a consultant will be hired to analyze DOC infrastructure, disadvantages and future needs. While the project, which was in the work of the Lincoln County website, also relies on the management of the report of the consultant, drawn up in 2021, Venthazen said that too many legislators remain skeptical.
“I don’t think it’s viable to just rely on the old consultant report because there are people who don’t accept it, so that’s why (we) will press the reset button and start from these things,” said the lieutenant governor.
Although the work of dirt and other preparation of the site has already begun on the Lincoln Prison website, selected by DOC for the facility in 2023, the rotation of the Governor of the Cabinet means that the work will cease until the working group makes its recommendations to the legislative power. And this will have to come later since July 22, the day he will call the legislators back in Capitol for a special session in the prison.
Project Prison Reset is a welcome development for legislators who were critical of the plan, including members of the Rodin Working Group.
“I applaud the governor for a deliberate and logical approach to dealing with the needs of imprisonment of South Dakota. We need to be solving problems and deal with these needs, “Carr said. “We need to look at this problem with all the options of the table with a focus on the safety of workers and prisoners, as well as to deal with rehabilitation, programming and work skills to prepare people for re -login.”
The working group will meet every four weeks, starting on April 2. Her meetings will be held in public, according to the governor’s office.
– Austin Goss and Joe Snay for the South Dakota Television Operators Association