Local Pols Welcome Gitmo Prisoners, Residents Say 'Not So Fast'

STANDISH, Mich., Aug. 14, 2009 — -- Though local politicians support the idea, residents of Standish, Mich., are wary of the possibility that their town could be chosen by the Obama administration to house the U.S. detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

On Thursday, officials from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon and the Department of Justice toured the Standish Maximum Security Prison as a possible site for housing U.S. detainees when the administration closes the controversial detention facility.

With the Standish prison set to close this fall as part of budget cuts in Michigan, the mayor of Standish has welcomed the idea of moving the Gitmo detainees to the area to keep the prison open and save hundreds of jobs.

But many residents say saving jobs at the prison is not worth bringing terror suspects into their backyard.

"It's scary. The unknown is scary. You're being told you're going to have terrorists in your community, and that's a little frightening," said Jeri Harris, a marketing director who has lived in the area for nine years.

Harris fears that the small town of 1,500 people could become the target of a terrorist attack.

"If someone decided to bomb the prison because the detainees were in them, I live not that far away," she said. "And if something were to happen, that would be awful."

Local officials like state representative Tim Moore, a Republican, have embraced moving the detainees to Michigan to give the local economy a boost. With the nation's highest unemployment rate, 15 percent, Michigan has seen some of the worst economic distress in the country.

Arenac County, where Standish is located, has an unemployment rate of 17 percent. The prison is the biggest employer in the city, with 300 jobs, and Moore has said the entire county would become an economic "ghost town" if the prison shut down.

For more than 50 years, Joseph Varadi's tire shop has stood on US-23, which runs through Standish. Varadi said the economy for the city is worse than he's ever seen it. But he, like so many residents, doesn't think the economic concerns outweigh the security ones.

"I don't really care for this too much," Varadi said. "If they let some of the detainees go, do they just wander around the city? Where do they go?"