Henon delays vote on bill to purchase land for Holmesburg prison

AMID HEAVY criticism from education advocates, City Councilman Bobby Henon yesterday held a bill that calls for the city to spend more than $7 million to purchase property along the Delaware River that some say could be used to build a replacement prison for the adjacent dilapidated House of Correction, built in 1874.

Henon, whose 6th District includes the 58-acre Holmesburg property, postponed a vote on the bill during Council's regular meeting, where about 40 public school advocates cheered for speakers decrying what they called the "school-to-prison pipeline" and demanding that lawmakers spend tax dollars on schools instead of prisons.

Henon, who sponsored the bill on behalf of Mayor Nutter's administration, noted that money for schools and prisons comes from different sources.

"It's real simple, man: These people are politicized," he said. "We have a school district crisis right now. We're not spending any money on prisons right now."

Among those who testified, flanked by handmade signs with slogans like "school funding, not new prisons," was Andre Williams, 22, who's set to receive his diploma in November from Youth Empowerment Services, a North Philly nonprofit that helps dropouts obtain diplomas or GEDs.

He had been expelled from Jules E. Mastbaum Area Vocational Technical School in Kensington for fighting, and was later arrested for selling drugs and armed robbery, he said at the podium.

"Being locked up did not change me," Williams said. "Education and school did."

Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. said he wanted to "applaud" Henon for withdrawing the bill.

"We clearly know in this business that one budget is not the same as another budget, [the difference between] capital versus operating is real clear," Jones said. "But the signal that's sent to a lot of young people is that the pipeline to prison is open for them. We should not send that signal."

Henon later said that the House of Correction is dangerous.

"It's not safe for anyone in that building to continue on for the near future," he said after the Council meeting. "I think it's our responsibility to at least look at it and see what can be done, you know, before the federal government steps in and says, 'You know what, you have to tear that down.' "

Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility and Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center are also nearby.

Nutter said yesterday that there are no plans to build a new prison.

"That bill is about land adjacent to a dilapidated, old and outdated facility," he said."If you have that size piece of property adjacent to all of our other facilities up there, it's smart on our part to at least acquire it and then another administration will decide what they actually end up doing with it."