Ontario 125 Years: SRCI brought new opportunities, fears to Ontario in 1991

By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Saturday, July 12, 2008 10:12 PM PDT

Snake River Correctional Institution, situated on the outskirts of Ontario, is Oregon’s largest prison. Although officials say the prison aims to be a ‘good neighbor,’ opponents of the facility were not convinced that would occur prior to its construction.

ONTARIO — Sitting on a hill above Ontario and the valley below looms Snake River Correctional Institution, the biggest correctional facility in Oregon and a structure that once sparked widespread controversy but has now evolved into a local fixture.

SRCI administrators say they believe the prison facility has become a good neighbor since it opened in August 1991.

Many would agree. However, in the early ’90s, the entire prospect of a nearby prison created turmoil among many residents.

A the time, opponents did not believe the prison could be a “good neighbor,” but proponents advocated the prison would provide an economic boost to the area by creating many jobs. The controversy that resulted was just as big as the construction itself, making the opening of SRCI one of the top 25 big news events in the city’s history.

The controversy

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“Oh, it was a huge deal at the time,” Ontario Police Chief Mike Kee, who was still an officer then, recalled.

Kee said the issue divided the community and admitted he “bought into the hype” and was vehemently opposed to the idea of the multi-security facility being built on the edge of town.

“I remember because it was going to affect our quality of life,” Kee said with a bit of a laugh.

Kee said, at the time, the common fears and arguments against the prison were it was going to bring all the inmates’ families to the area; Ontario residents were going to be in danger because of prison escapes; the ex-convicts were going to be released in Ontario; the crime rate was going to go through the roof.

“Geez there were all kind of things,” he said. “I just can’t remember all of the issues, but geez it was huge.”

Kee can laugh at himself when he remembers he believed all of those arguments because, as it turns out, they all were wrong. In reality, he said, it’s too expensive for prisoners’ families to follow them to the area, and few have. The inmates, once released, are not turned loose in Ontario, but are returned to the county they were sentenced in. The crime rate has not jumped through the roof. And escapee inmates are not lurking in the streets of Ontario, hiding from the law. In fact, Kee said, he has since learned escapees are not likely to head toward the lights and well-populated areas, and escapes have not been a common occurrence anyway.

“I think they’ve had one escape that I can remember,” he said.  

The controversy even sparked an attempted recall of a county judge and county commissioner who had helped push Ontario as the site for the prison.

Judge Maxwell T. Lieurance and Malheur County Commissioner Don Cox were instrumental in getting the prison built in Ontario and worked with state officials in getting Ontario selected as the location, Lieurance’s widow, Marcia Lieurance, said.

“They went to bat and took all the guff from everybody who didn’t want the prison,” she said.

She said a small group of local residents who were opposed to the prison went so far as to collect signatures for a recall petition of her husband and Cox. The group successfully gathered enough names to hold a recall election, but on March 13, 1990, the group’s recall effort failed handily. Of the votes, 1,622 were in favor of recalling Lieurance, with 3,799 opposed, and Cox garnered 1,664 yes votes, 3,768 against a recall.

Marcia Lieurance said her husband and Cox advocated Ontario as the site of a prison because they wanted to help stimulate the failing local economy.

“Well, this county was a county in a deep decline,” Marcia Lieurance said, adding buildings were closing by the dozen. “It was really going down hill.”

In the late 1980s, then-Gov. Neil Goldschmidt announced a number of new prisons would be built in Oregon, and Lieurance and Cox completed all of the necessary paperwork and advocated Ontario during the selection process.

“And you know how successful it is,” Marcia Lieurance said. “I don’t know where Ontario would be right now without that prison out there.”

While she said Payette and Fruitland may have benefited more because of the housing growth the prison spurred in those two cities, the prison created a great deal of jobs, which she thinks helped restimulate the lagging commercial retail sector in Ontario.

“There was nothing out there in that K-Mart/Wal-Mart area,” she said.

The prison and community

The first phase of the prison was built and opened in August 1991 with 576 medium-security and 72 minimum-security beds. Phase 1 cost a little more than $42 million. In 1995, the Legislature approved an expenditure of $175 million — the largest state general funded public works project in Oregon’s history — to complete phase 2.

 Phase 2, which was completed in November of 1998, included construction of the remaining 2,376 beds. The prison, which sits on 538 acres and is 1,025,000 square feet, is the largest in the state and houses 2,930 inmates with nearly 900 employees, 45 contractors and 270 volunteers working there, according to information from prison officials.

“We’re really the second largest city in Malheur County,” SRCI Public Relations Coordinator Amber Campbell said.

“It’s quite an impact on the community,” SRCI Director Mark Nooth agreed.

Nooth, who came to SRCI from New Jersey in 2003 as the assistant superintendent and who has spent his career working in corrections, said, in his experience, prisons can make large impacts in smaller cities and counties, which he thinks has been done in Ontario.

“Prisons tend to be good neighbors,” he said.

Both he and Campbell agree, after housing and trying to rehabilitate inmates, being a good neighbor is one of the top priorities of the prison, and SRCI has formed business partnerships in the community, such as with Holy Rosary Medical Center, and other community partnerships. Inmates do various public service and projects with inmate work crews, such as setting up the fairgrounds, shoveling snow, feeding senior citizens, doing work for Help Them To Hope, Festival of Trees and Four Rivers Cultural Center. They also work on inmate firefighting crews for the state. One of the first big projects prison inmates worked on was the Treasure Valley Community College Ore-Ida sports complex.

“We can provide a lot of community services,” Nooth said.

The prison also has an annual fundraiser in February that benefits the local food bank, and other fundraisers. Campbell estimates the prison donates enough for approximately 75,000 to 100,000 pounds of food. “We do events all year long,” she said.

Nooth said, overall, SRCI tries to be a very good neighbor to Ontario, and the service projects and other partnership programs benefit both Ontario and the inmates.

And Kee, who freely admits he was wrong about SRCI, has revised his opinion since the prison has opened. He said, from everything he has witnessed as an Ontario resident and professionally through an OPD agreement with prison officials to use the facility’s firing range, SRCI has contributed greatly and positively to Ontario.

“I think it’s been a fantastic addition to our community,” Kee said. “I think it’s done nothing but enhance our community.”