Published: November 24, 2009 08:43 am      

Quinn expects action ‘rather quickly’ on Thomson prison

CHICAGO — Gov. Pat Quinn said Monday he expects swift action on a proposal to sell a northwestern Illinois prison to the federal government to house Guantanamo Bay detainees, while a leading Republican critic, Congressman Mark Kirk, moderated his rhetoric on the issue.

Kirk, who last week said “we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target,” said Monday he wants a “dispassionate and specific” discussion about any proposal to sell the Thomson Correctional Center. But he still sees it as an “unnecessary risk.”

“But then I’m practical, I’m from the Midwest and I understand when a deal has been cut. So then the question is, if we are to move forward then how do we move forward?” Kirk told reporters in Chicago.

Kirk and other Republican members of Congress from Illinois have a detailed list of questions they want answered by Gov. Pat Quinn and the Obama administration that include: Where would trials for the detainees be held? And would detainees leave prison for local hospitals to get medical care?

Kirk, who is running for President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat, and other Republicans have been accused of fear mongering in their attacks against a proposal to move detainees to the maximum-security prison in a farming community about 150 miles west of Chicago that has been nearly vacant since it was built by the state in 2001.

Thomson is the latest location to be considered as the Obama administration looks for a place to relocate the detainees. Obama wants to close the military-run detention center in Cuba.

Last week, federal officials toured Thomson and they visited again over the weekend.

Quinn said it’s a good sign federal officials have taken such a close look at the prison and that they have been “very impressed.”

The prison has 1,600 cells but budget problems have kept it from ever being fully operational and it now houses only about 200 minimum-security inmates.

Quinn is pushing hard for the federal government to take over the Thomson facility, promising that it will help create jobs in a struggling area. Critics question the economic impact.

“I think this will move along rather quickly,” Quinn said.

A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons said she did not have a timeline for the administration’s decision.