Cayetano negotiates The Cayetano administration should know within a month whether it can reach agreement with a contractor over a new state prison to replace the overcrowded Oahu Community Correctional Center.
for prison in Halawa
The governor hopes to strike
a deal on a new 1,100-bed facilityBy Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.comHouse Republicans, however, want more information about it before the deal is done.
Gov. Ben Cayetano said yesterday he hopes a deal will be struck with Durrant-Media Five within the four months he has left as governor. Durrant is a design firm with Hawaii offices and the only bidder on the project.
The contract, Cayetano said, would be to build and possibly operate a new 1,100-bed prison in Halawa Valley. He said the state is negotiating the cost per inmate, the kind of programs the facility would offer and other details.
In January, Durrant had proposed building a $116 million, 10-story, 1,100-bed replacement for OCCC in return for $8.4 million in annual lease payments from the state, with an option to buy after 30 years.
Details of the current plan were unavailable.
Cayetano said efforts to build a prison during his eight years as governor have been plagued with a not-in-my-backyard response by communities. A few years ago, the Legislature could not decide on a prison location and instead gave the governor power to negotiate construction of a new prison.
The governor says this Halawa plan is exactly what that law allows him to do.
And the fact that there was only one bidder does not trouble him, considering there are few companies nationwide that do this kind of specialized work, he said.
"Every time we try to find a prison and put it someplace, there's nothing but opposition," Cayetano said.
"And this is an opportunity for us to do something. That's why we're looking at it seriously. It's not a done deal yet because the terms are subject to negotiation."
House Republicans said they have questions about the Durrant plan, in part because there has not been a lot of public information about it.
The House GOP will meet on Thursday with Public Safety Director Ted Sakai and Budget Director Stanley Shiraki to be briefed on the prison procurement plan.
Sakai could not be reached for comment. Mel Choy, managing principal for Durrant's local office, is on the mainland and unavailable for comment.
House Minority Leader Galen Fox (R, Waikiki) said yesterday Halawa is as good a place as any to built a much-needed new prison. But he and others have concerns because the negotiations over the contract are being done outside the public arena. And there are concerns because only one company submitted bids for it, he said.
Charles Djou (R, Kaneohe), House minority floor leader, said he is concerned about how the state will finance the plan. According to Djou, the state proposal calls for Durrant to build the prison and the state to pay a set fee for 20 years.
If at any time the state government fails to make a payment, the prison ownership would divert to Durrant, he said. Theoretically, if that happens, Djou said, the company would be able to import prisoners to Hawaii from other states.
"I'm not accusing anybody -- not the governor, not the administration --- of doing anything underhanded. But I do think there are a lot of legislative questions that need to be asked about the prison," Djou said.