If I were on the City Council of Italy, here’s a few questions I’d ask of James Parkey. It’s called “due diligence.”

Two years ago, faced with the difficulty of paying off its bonds, Haskell county was forced to sell the prison that Parkey is still praising.

• The speculative jail you promoted at Hardin, Montana has been a subject of international notoriety. It has been empty since completion three years ago and has been in bond default for over two years. Its initial debt service was “approx. $211.252 a month.” Its legality was questioned and its design ridiculed. It was turned down for holding all sex offenders and afterward, Guantanamo detainees. Last summer you attended meetings between a penniless California career confidence man and the Hardin Two Rivers Port Authority, where it was decided to let the con man take over the operation of the jail. “Kim Hammond, mayor of Hardin, has warned cities like Benson (Arizona) to tread lightly when considering the proposals brought forth by private companies like Corplan.” The Montana Legislative Services Division’s attorney studied the issue for the Law and Justice Interim Committee and concluded: “The facility was conceived, “sold,” and built with no attempt to comply with the Legislature’s laws relating to correctional facilities or with any acknowledgment of the Legislature’s carefully considered policy regarding the interstate exchange of felony prisoners.” The Legislative Audit Division cited “Problems at other facilities,” that included, “Hudspeth County,” where “local officials…suggested the county would lose at least $500,000 a year on the facility.” “In LaSalle County, Texas, “officials stated the county cannot afford to meet the more than $2 million (annual) debt service on the…12% interest bonds.” How much in fees and commissioners were paid to you and Deborah Williams for that jail? What went wrong there?
• The speculative jail you promoted at Pioche, Nevada was completed in 1993, never held a prisoner and was eventually sold for about seven cents on the inflation-adjusted investor dollar in 2004. What went wrong there?
• The speculative jail you promoted at Lindsay, Oklahoma, had problems that were extremely similar to those in Hardin: Legal questions, unavailability of potential prisoners, construction costs, bonding issues. The City and its Industrial Development Authority spent tens of thousands of unrecoverable dollars on the scheme. This proposal was pursued for two years. What went wrong there?
• The speculative jail you promoted in Willacy County Texas eventuated in the prosecution of two local county commissioners for accepting bribes, and a county commissioner from another county was also convicted of paying those bribes. The latter worked for Corplan. Where did the bribe money come from? Two weeks ago, as and individual and corporate defendant, you filed an answer to a Title 1983 civil rights action by the former county district attorney. What went wrong there?
• The speculative Highway 6 jail in McLennan County, Texas, has yet to hold a prisoner. The county has finally reluctantly acknowledged that it is $49 million in debt, rather than having no liability. What went wrong there?
• You recently proposed to build “family detention centers” in Las Cruces, New Mexico and Benson, Arizona. You had been informed in July last year in Weslaco, Texas, that ICE would no longer fund such facilities. You were reported as saying that H&HS would fund the two. H&HS denies it has any such interest in funding such a facility. Serial meetings were held with officials that evaded the Arizona Open Meetings Act. What went wrong there?
• The speculative jail you promoted at St Luis, Arizona, has had endless economic problems. The city of Yuma recently sued your former partner in the proposal for $1.3 million it believes it was owed. What went wrong there?
• Your proposal to build a speculative prison for immigrants on the Tohono O’odom reservation’s San Xavier District in the immediate vicinity of the Rancho Sahuarita subdivision in Sahuarita was kept from public view for perhaps two years. What went wrong there?
• Your proposal to build a speculative 1,000-bed prison in the tiny town of Quartzite Arizona was apparently recently abandoned. What went wrong there?
• Your proposal to build a speculative prison in Baker County, Florida was recently rejected. What went wrong there?
• Benson, Arizona had turned down your proposal to build a speculative prison in 2004. What went wrong there?
• Smith County, Texas, “threw out a 2005 proposal by Corplan Corrections for a new facility after they learned of a growing scandal in Willacy County. Their vote was not based on the bribery-related convictions of three county officials there, but on the “contingent liability” of a lawsuit filed in May against Corplan and Hale-Mills by Willacy County. The lawsuit claims that Corplan and Hale-Mills conspired to bribe county commissioners, to be selected for a $14.5 million project.” How was that suit settled?

Frank Smith
390 SE 110 Ave.
Bluff City, KS 67018
(620)967-4616