Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Saturday, September 06, 2008
No time for NIMBY
You’ve heard the acronym before. It’s NIMBY, and it stands for Not In My Back Yard.
The La Crosse Common Council will wrestle with NIMBY next week as it considers a proposed lease that would allow 10 women jail inmates to reside in two city-owned duplexes in a structured environment for up to a year. La Crosse County leaders have already approved the concept.
NIMBY always brings the same sort of objections.
If (fill in the blank) comes into our neighborhood, it will lower property values.
It will harm the safety of our family.
It will disrupt the character of our neighborhood and the reasons we moved here.
All of those objections are understandable — and, at times, certainly have merit. But, often, they are based more on emotion than truth.
That emotion from constituents has prompted council member George Italiano to object to the move.
Italiano seems sincere when he says, “This isn’t nice at all to overrule them, honestly, and I feel bad about the whole thing. But I’ve got to do what’s right for my constituents.”
But, the right thing for the community at-large is for the city to approve this proposal.
It is vital to allow the county to provide a structured setting where nonviolent offenders can receive counseling and coping skills that will make them more productive and less prone to recidivism once released from custody.
Electronic monitoring and cameras will be used, and justice officials will make periodic visits.
Is it something you really want to have in your backyard?
These are people — people who have challenges, to be sure — who will be released back into the community within a matter of months. There likely will be no restriction on where they live.
It’s easy to say we should just keep them locked up. Well, just look across the street from the Tribune at the jail addition taking shape, and you’ll understand that continuing to house nonviolent offenders is a costly venture.
It’s also costly when offenders offend again after release. The county’s Justice Sanctions program clearly has a strong track record in cutting down on such return visits to incarceration.
Some offenders shouldn’t continue to be housed in jail. It isn’t good for them. It isn’t good for the community. And it isn’t good for the taxpayer dollar. While it doesn’t always demonstrate leadership, we certainly understand why an elected official would respond to constituent fears.
But, there’s a reason we have representative democracy instead of resorting to instant polling of constituents on every issue. We believe this proposal better serves the greater good for the long-term health of our community.
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