California state prison closure threatens desert town

California is unwinding the prison-building growth of the Eighties and Nineties, with cuts falling on small cities that depended on executive jobs from the establishments. Blythe, a tiny desert town that relied on prisons and water, is dropping each. The management of Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced the town could be one of the crucial subsequent hit by way of the unwinding of California’s sprawling prison gadget by way of dismantling Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, which is able to price the group loads of jobs. Blythe leaders don’t have any solutions, and their newest unhappiness got here in May when the governor’s proposed price range stored the prison at the closure listing. The town’s water may be increasingly more going to huge farm conglomerates, leaving the way forward for Blythe bleak. The Assembly Budget Committee’s 2023 price range plan features a provision requiring the closure of 5 extra prisons by way of 2027, with lawmakers to believe it in June price range negotiations.