Plan to Convert Scott Prison into Regional Police Hub Dropped

A plan to turn the former Robert Scott Correctional Facility in Northville Township into a regional public safety dispatch center appears to be halted in the early stages.

Livonia Police Chief Robert Stevenson said he put forward the plan in a letter to other western Wayne County police chiefs and Livonia politicians. He said he wrote the letter earlier this month following a meeting with the chiefs discussing a changeover to the prison.

However, Stevenson said Wednesday that using the Scott facility would not be the best idea, following the Northville Township Board of Trustees rejection of the plan through a vote on April 21. The board approved a resolution to ask the state to sell the prison to shopping center or light industrial developers.

Township Manager Chip Snider said the board heard of, and were upset by, Stevenson’s letter. He said residents want the concertina-wire wrapped prison gone, and a tax-paying commercial property in its place.

State Rep. Kurt Heise will now take the township’s resolution to the state legislature, to encourage a vote to put the property at Five Mile and Beck Road up for bid. The state Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget would handle the sale, if approved.

Kurt Weiss, a spokesman for the DTMB, explained that if the legislature agrees to sell the property, then they put it out to bid to developers.

Stevenson said the prison plan was just preliminary, and he hadn’t known there would be a negative reaction.

“If the political people aren’t for it, then it’s a dead issue,” he said.

He said he will continue to push for a regional dispatch center, though in some other property, possibly even in Livonia’s empty courthouse.

“One of the things that the governor has been pushing is regionalization and the combining of services between communities,” Stevenson said. “Police departments have had to make cuts, and are struggling to gain efficiency. Combining dispatch is just one way to do this.”

The Scott facility, a former women’s prison that closed in 2009, would have been perfect, he said.

“At many departments, a dispatcher has a double duty of watching the jail,” Stevenson said.

He said the Western Wayne Chief’s Association will discuss the regional facility further, and will set up a meeting in the coming months to meet with community leaders.

State Sen. Glenn Anderson, who represents Livonia, said he saw the letter and supports a regional dispatch facility. However, he said he doesn’t want to use the Scott prison if the township is opposed to the plan.