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The Utah State Prison now has five potential homes, after the Prison Relocation Commission added two pieces of land to its short list Friday.
One parcel is west of Eagle Mountain in Utah County and another is in the Tooele Valley near Grantsville. Each is near one of the three previously announced sites that remain under consideration.
Those three sites are at the south end of Eagle Mountain, near the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele County and west of the Salt Lake City International Airport. The commission agreed to look at an expanded parcel Friday as it hunts for the best 500 acres to build a new penitentiary.
Grantsville Mayor Brent Marshall is frustrated to have a second site near his city on the list.
"I've got it on the east door and on the west door," Marshall said. "[The new site] is right in the heart of Grantsville on the west side. You've got homes around it. You've got [business] facilities."
Marshall said there are concerns about the availability of water and even the prospect of bringing the prison to town is jeopardizing a major economic-development project the city has been trying to finalize.
"I have a meeting with the property owner next week concerning this site," Marshall said. "I'm going to ask him point-blank to remove the site and hopefully we can go forward. We don't feel it's a viable site."
Commission leader Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, said he's convinced each of the sites could reasonably hold the prison and that consultants have looked at the proximity to population centers and potential economic development.
Community groups in each of those places have opposed the move, worried that a new prison would reduce property values there and hurt the reputation of the area. They turned out in large numbers for Friday's meeting, holding signs protesting the prison move.
"What we are really dealing with here is the backyard issue," said Stevenson, a commission co-chairman who believes protests will subside when areas are eventually taken off the list.
The commission expanded the search for land in December, after members believed they made an error by putting too much weight on placing a new prison near the existing one in Draper. That started a hunt for land farther out. Consultants looked at more than 20 sites before landing on the two parcels added to the list Friday.
Technical reviews — geological surveys and the costs of utilities — should help the commission make a final recommendation on a new prison site in May or June.
Legislative leaders and commission members say it makes financial sense to move the prison and it would result in a better criminal-justice system.
Rep. Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, the other commission co-chair, said that the new 4,000-bed facility could be run more efficiently and expand the state's limited ability to provide substance-abuse treatment and other rehabilitation services. Keeping the prison in place would require the state to pay $230 million to renovate the existing buildings, he said, and they would still be "woefully inadequate."
It's not guaranteed that the prison is going anywhere. Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday that if a better site than Draper can't be found, it can stay where it is.
"I don't want to be in conflict with the governor, and I don't think I am. My concern is, if we do stay [in Draper] they won't replace the entire package," said Rollin Cook, executive director of Utah's Department of Corrections. "We're still going to be stuck with facilities … that are not conducive to being able to help people stay out of prison and give them the training and teaching and education stuff they need."
Wilson plans to offer a bill allowing the commission to make the final site selection, bypassing a final vote of the Legislature. Herbert has threatened to veto the measure — his only veto threat of the legislative session so far.