McNally: Youngstown private prison owner won't fight loss of federal contract

By David Skolnick | January 8, 2015 at 12:06a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The owner of the city’s private prison isn’t pleased that it lost a contract to house federal inmates, but will not take any steps to fight that decision, Mayor John A. McNally said.

The mayor said he spoke Wednesday to officials with the Corrections Corp. of America, which owns and operates the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center on Hubbard Road on the city’s East Side.

“CCA has agreed to not protest” the decision, McNally said.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons recently told CCA, based in Nashville, Tenn., that it wouldn’t renew a contract to house about 1,400 of its inmates at NEOCC after its contract expires May 31.

CCA has declined to discuss the reasons the bureau gave the company for not renewing the contract.

The prison will continue to house 580 inmates under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, which expires Dec. 31, 2018.

Steven Owen, CCA’s senior director of public affairs, has said the company will explore other government contracts to house inmates at NEOCC and retain as many of the 418 employees there as possible.

McNally said CCA may seek a contract to house inmates from the state prison system as well as expand its contract with the marshals office, though those are preliminary ideas.

Meanwhile, T. Sharon Woodberry, the city’s director of community planning and economic development, said she’s had conversations with ALDI Inc. officials about what the company is going to do with three Bottom Dollar grocery-store locations it has in the city. ALDI purchased Bottom Dollar in November, and is closing the three stores next week.

A decision from ALDI on the future of the three locations is expected in March, Woodberry said, though the city will remain in contact with the company.

The city also is talking to local grocery-store owners about the locations, she said.

Bottom Dollar stores are on Mahoning and Glenwood avenues, and Midlothian Boulevard. ALDI owns the Glenwood and Midlothian locations and leases the Mahoning property.

If ALDI doesn’t want to open stores at the two locations it owns, the city wants the company to give it the properties, Woodberry said.

There was a city-owned public park at the Glenwood Avenue location before it was transferred to Bottom Dollar.