Local News in Brief : Firm Hopes to Build Prison
A Nevada company has announced that it hopes to build a privately operated prison for state and federal inmates on a 492-acre site near the county’s Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in the Santa Clarita Valley.
But a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections said the Reno-based Mills Jennings Co. has not yet contacted the state about such plans. California has no private prisons and opening one would require an act of the Legislature.
Company Chairman David Smith said Mills Jennings acquired the site--located north of Magic Mountain and about a mile south of the county’s Pitchess prison in Saugus--for about $10 million in stock and bonds last Thursday. Company officials envision a minimum-security prison that would contract with state and federal authorities to hold inmates, Smith said.
The company has no experience in building private prisons, however, and is open to using the land for other purposes, he said.
“We’re expecting that there will be quite a few obstacles prior to the development, and the property doesn’t have to be developed in this fashion,” Smith said.
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