PHILIPSBURG – The Moshannon Valley Economic Development Partnership (MVEDP) announced Wednesday that a large group of people consisting of GEO Group representatives, elected officials, state agency personnel, county economic development officials and team members of the MVEDP are now working to determine what opportunities there might be for the reuse of the GEO Moshannon Valley property.
“The upcoming closure of the GEO Moshannon Valley facility is the worst economic news that we have received in our region in over 20 years,” said Bryan Bennett, president of the MVEDP.
“The MVEDP believes it essential that local leaders now work with GEO Group representatives to determine if there will be any reuse opportunities.
“On Friday, March 5, we hosted an online meeting of these officials to discuss both the short-term and long-term objectives of this reuse effort.”
“It was a very good meeting and we were pleased with the participation of numerous GEO Group, state and local officials,” he said.
Congressman Glenn Thompson expressed his disappointment with the Biden administration’s executive order to end the contracts with private corrections companies.
“To just unilaterally end those contracts without analyzing the costs and benefits of each individual facility is a huge mistake,” he said. “With the change in the administration, we knew that the termination of the contracts was inevitable.”
“We have always known that our Federal government could end its contracts with private corrections companies like GEO Group, but we never thought that we would lose this local asset,” said Stan LaFuria, executive director of the MVEDP.
“This GEO Group facility has been professionally managed and has been rated by the federal government as a high performer since the very beginning.
“We have been dedicated to this job-providing facility since back in 1998 when we first worked with GEO’s predecessor Cornell Companies to site the facility here in the Moshannon Valley.”
“We were dedicated to securing this facility for our area back then, and we are dedicated now to assisting GEO Group with their efforts to determine whether there are any reuse opportunities,” he said.
State Senator Jake Corman provided some valuable input at the meeting regarding the state legislation that was passed in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s that allowed the Cornell facility to operate in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
“That legislation was structured to allow, for the very first time, a privately-owned corrections company to operate in Pennsylvania only if it had federally designated clients or inmates,” said Corman.
“If there is a plan to have non-federal inmates at GEO Moshannon Valley, there will need to be new legislation approved by the state House, Senate and governor,” he said.
“It will not be easy to develop a reuse for the facility involving the federal government,” said Adam Hasner of the GEO Group.
“The feds have terminated contracts with private providers because of their claim that inmate populations are down and excess space exists at government-owned facilities. We are now initiating discussions with other federal agencies.”
GEO officials who participated in the meeting included Hasner, David Venturella, Blake Davis, Amber Martin, Bruce Brown, John Oliver, Chris Ryen and Clint Cullison.
Local elected officials that participated included Thompson, Corman, State Senator Wayne Langerholc, Clearfield County Commissioners John Sobel, Tony Scotto and Dave Glass and Centre County Commissioners Mark Higgins, Michael Pipe and Steve Dershem.
A key official who attended with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry was Steve Wolf, and Susie Snelick, executive director of the North Central Workforce Development Board.
The MVEDP’s team of participants included two of its officers, Bennett and Assistant Treasurer Jim Pollock and LaFuria.