Roger Strukhoff

I'll start by saying that because I don't live in Carroll County anymore, I don't have the right to comment on what goes on there.

Editorials, opinion pieces, angry letters to the editor, coffee-shop conversations, and bar wisdom are the province of people who reside in a place, contribute to it, define it, live and breathe it.

On the other hand, I've spent most of the past quarter century in Silicon Valley, where the hot topics include whether routers are the key to business computing (they are), whether Google is the new Microsoft (not really), and whether Steve Jobs is as big of a horse's butt as he is a genius (absolutely).

So I normally keep my mouth shut when it comes to writing about Carroll County. But the "Gitmo Comes to Thomson" story is too big for me to ignore.

This is a bigger story than the great basketball fistfights among Mount Carroll, Thomson, and Chadwick in the 70s, of  the Thomson Trojans' march to the Final Four in that era, even of the Mount Carroll Hawks' recent trek to the championship game in the waning days of pre-consolidation.

But I digress. This article is supposed to be about the prison, not about basketball.

My dad was from Thomson, and my mom lives there now. I visit occasionally, and I may be moving back to Carroll County soon.

I grew up in Carroll County and have it stamped into my DNA. I mourn the replacement of gravel roads with blacktop, don't like the presence of a stoplight in what used to be a no-stoplight county, and remember a time when each of the seven downtowns in the county were vibrant.

This latter point forms the center of  debate as to whether the transfer of terrorist suspects from Gitmo, Cuba to Thomson, Illinois is a good thing or a bad thing. One side of the debate can be summarized as "we need jobs!" The other side can be summarized as "terrorists bring terrorism!"

The destruction of small-town America over the past 30 years is a well-worn theme, with blue-collar jobs being outsourced offshore, sales jobs disappearing as shoppers flocked to WalMart and regional malls, and white-collar workers seeking opportunities in the big cities. Populations have shrunk, with Carroll County falling from 19,507 residents in 1960 to 16,674 in 2000--a drop of almost 15 percent. School consolidations reflect precipitous drops in the number of children. Rural America is not only getting smaller, it's getting older.

Against this backdrop, my impression from speaking with people during my recent visit there was that a large majority is in favor of bringing Gitmo prisoners to Thomson. Only certain politicians seem loudly opposed, but it's no surprise that those politicians--along with all other politicians--are considered to be vapid windbags by the local populace.

The majority point of view in Carroll County--at least in western Carroll County, where the Gitmo impact will be felt the most--is that the State of Illinois built a massive prison on the outskirts of Thomson, forgot to fund its opening, and essentially left local residents in the lurch. So why not let the Feds take it over and actually, you know, get some use out of it?

The original, seemingly earnest promises from the State of Illinois about all those "hundreds" and "thousands" of jobs and all those "millions" of dollars of economic growth vanished into the ether along with the politicians' hot air. You know the saying, beware of wise men bearing gifts;  with politicians, this shouldn't have been a problem, because where were the wise men?

Now come more promises, this time from the Federal level. But let's hope that these promises are symbolic and cynical. In other words, let's hope this is not really that big a deal. After all, the most recent announcement from the Obama administration talks of locating only 100 or so prisoners to Thomson.

Even with the vast army of lawyers, military men and women, vacuous national media, and various and sundry sunglasses-wearing Feds, the footprint laid down upon Carroll County probably won't be that large. And this is the good news.

Wouldn't it be a great day indeed if politicians were honest in their promises and accurate in their predictions? Wouldn't it be great if they were modest people making modest predictions?

As to the other side of the debate, I doubt the area will be a terrorist target. After all, CNN and all the rest will leave within a few days of the initial prisoner transfer. There's no reason to make news if there are no cameras present, right?

Carroll County saw its greatest economic days when the Savanna Army Depot--a Federal presence if there ever was one--provided thousands of jobs throughout a good part of the 20th century. When the depot closed during the Clinton Administration, that is, when the Feds left residents in the lurch back then, the county was left with a toxic superfund site and economic destruction.

So, as Gitmo comes to Thomson, my hope is that some new jobs are created, that some amount of money flows into an area that really needs it, that Thomson and Carroll County are put onto the map but not highlighted in big letters. Then, after the initial excitement, a slightly more prosperous Carroll County can get back to talking about the things that really matter--like basketball.

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