While the Change.org petition site tends to be associated in many minds with the progressive side of the innertubes, anyone and any organization can do use the service.
Witness the City of Appleton.
It's started a petition to the Federal Bureau of Prisons asking the agency to give a grant to those poor paupers at CoreCivic (the for-profit, human-traffickers formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America) so that they may lock up criminal aliens at the long-shuttered Prairie Correctional Facility in Appleton.
Because jobs.
Here's the petition, Support CoreCivic receiving a federal grant to reopen the Prairie Correctional Facility:
This petition is in response to the Federal Bureau of Prison’s Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) XIX, RFP-PCC-0026, in which the Bureau is looking for contract owned and operated facilities to meet the needs for housing criminal aliens.
The citizens of the City of Appleton and Swift County would like to encourage the Federal Bureau of Prisons to award this contract to CoreCivic at the Prairie Correctional Facility, for the CAR XIX solicitation.
This company makes a significant economic impact on our area through job creation and participation in community outreach. CoreCivic pays competitive wages with an excellent benefit package to employees. We would like to see CoreCivic reopen the Prairie Correctional Facility to foster development in our community like it has done in the past.
Well, that's certainly a pretty sharp u-turn for Appleton (and Swift County, if it's involved in this) from the snow job we heard over the last few sessions about how opening the prison under state control or purchase would avoid of problems of non-union jobs, while aiding the afflicted state prisoners boarded at county jails.
According to the Federal Reserve, the unemployment rate in Swift County was 3.4 percent in May 2017. A map of unemployment by counties at Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) reveals that with the exception of Renville County, unemployment is under 4 percent throughout counties near Appleton.
Bluestem suspects that the Trump administration is likely to use the same criteria for awarding these contracts as previous administrations used: proximity to a four-lane highway being a key factor. Highway 7 is a lovely drive, but it's two lanes.
As for CoreCivic's brand, check out the headlines from the last year: “CoreCivic”: New Name, Same For-Profit Prison Greed; Federal audit blasts Nashville-based CoreCivic, US Marshals, and our favorite: CoreCivic skipping Metro meeting Thursday on Nashville jail scabies outbreak.
Screengrab: The petition.
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