No Private CCA / ICE Immigrant Prison in SW Ranches: cornell corrections

The Town of Southwest Ranches, Corrections Corporation of American (CCA), and DHS / ICE want to build one of the largest immigration detention centers in the nation within walking distance of thousands of homes; thus, reducing the quality of our life and our community. We do not agree with the federal government privatizing our immigration detention centers throughout the nation when there is clear evidence that privatizing our prisons creates a clear public safety threat. For ICE to continue to privatize these institutions and bring this safety threat through their "secure communities Initiative" to our community is unacceptable. Depriving someone of their liberty is a non-delegable governmental function and privatizing of such a function is infecting our nation like a virus.

The Town of Southwest Ranches has now entered into it's THIRD Fire Contract within the last year now with the Town of Davie, costing taxpayers $120,000 in ramp up fees. They are now closing several roads in western Southwest Ranches charging the tax payers $80,000 for the gates. They have paid an unknown amount of money for lobbying with ICE regarding this prison. They have several lawsuits against the Town, 1- Involving Open Meeting Violations on a November 5th meeting concerning the ICE Detention Center, 2- Open Records Violations, and 3- The Town is putting together a lawsuit to sue Pembroke Pines for breach of contract because the City utilized their exit clause and cancelled for convenience their Fire/EMS contract which included water and sewer at the last minute for the CCA prison. In the contract it states that there should be no third party beneficiaries. CCA would be a third party in this instance.

CCA has also filed suit in Federal court against the City of Pembroke Pines saying they are denying them water however the City had never seen a water application. The City did file for a Declaratory Judgement in State Court but that has been put on hold until the Federal Court hears the suit from CCA.

Is ANYONE CONFUSED as to why the Pembroke Pines/Southwest Ranches Fire Agreement was cancelled? The Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff attempted to "slip" into the agreement a portion that guaranteed water for the prison at CCA's request. This is something that should have been brought up separately. CCA should have brought it forward on their own in a water application. This is sleight of hand that CCA and the Town attempted to do because they were so afraid of CCA being on the Pembroke Pines agenda.

As of June 2012, ICE put out a statement that the site selection was no longer needed due to the fact that the extra bedspace was no longer needed. READ UPDATE HERE!

Showing posts with label cornell corrections. Show all posts

Showing posts with label cornell corrections. Show all posts

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Private Prisons, Tax Dodging and Impossible Indemnity

There are two issues that were brought up at the HOA meeting with ICE and CCA that should be discussed. The first is taxes. CCA should contribute their fair share of property taxes, a good portion that would go to our local schools. CCA says they fully expect to pay their obligation of taxes once the facility is up and operational. Our research has shown that if past dictates present, CCA will use one or more means of tax avoidance to get out of this obligation.

One example is where they’ve used real estate tax shelters, until they became a hindrance to their growth. Another time, in 2002, the federal government sued CCA for $54 million after they discovered CCA was using tax loopholes to avoid paying federal taxes. In another example, in Cleveland, Ohio, the city and county gave CCA more than a 50% tax abatement for 3 years, but that wasn’t enough for CCA, they wanted more ; the county said no and CCA pulled out of the contract because they didn’t want to pay their share of local taxes. At a facility in KS CCA paid their taxes under protest, arguing that 90% of the prison should be reclassified as residential.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)