Gail Alexan­der

San­ta Rosa Heights res­i­dents' con­cern about the new de­ten­tion cen­tre near­by was dis­cussed yes­ter­day by the heads of se­cu­ri­ty di­vi­sions and is be­ing treat­ed with ur­gency, says Min­is­ter of In­for­ma­tion Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith. Dy­er-Grif­fith spoke af­ter yes­ter­day's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee meet­ing in­volv­ing heads of se­cu­ri­ty di­vi­sions. The com­mit­tee is a sub-team of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, head­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter. The meet­ing dis­cussed the many ob­jec­tions nois­i­ly raised by San­ta Rosa Heights res­i­dents on Tues­day night about the close prox­im­i­ty to their com­mu­ni­ty of the fa­cil­i­ty hous­ing state of emer­gency de­tainees. Res­i­dents shout­ed down Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, whom they met with, and loud­ly re­ject­ed the prison lo­ca­tion.

Dy­er-Grif­fith said: "The Gov­ern­ment team which at­tend­ed the meet­ing on Tues­day took down all the res­i­dents' con­cerns and sug­ges­tions and those were re­viewed and dis­cussed at the heads' meet­ing yes­ter­day. "Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy, who chaired yes­ter­day's meet­ing, has asked that the is­sue be treat­ed with ur­gency and with due con­sid­er­a­tion." Dy­er-Grif­fith said Ari­ma MP Rodger Samuel, who at­tend­ed Tues­day's meet­ing with res­i­dents and promised to stand by them, would be meet­ing with Sandy on the is­sue "...So we can have a win-win so­lu­tion in this," Dy­er-Grif­fith added. Fol­low­ing Tues­day night's meet­ing with res­i­dents, Samuel told re­porters the de­ci­sion to lo­cate the prison near San­ta Rosa Heights was made by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and was above his lev­el.

Samuel al­so told re­porters:, "When I cam­paigned in Ari­ma I promised peo­ple I would fight for them and stand with them as long as it's just and right. My con­stituents' con­cerns must be my con­cerns. "So it's im­por­tant for me to take their views to the right cir­cles and en­sure their voic­es are heard... that's my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. I will take this to the right cir­cles as of Wednes­day (yes­ter­day)." Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons John Rougi­er who was shout­ed down by res­i­dents on Tues­day, told re­porters he was pained by the sit­u­a­tion but un­der­stood res­i­dents' con­cerns. He said the de­ci­sion to place the prison there was not in his purview. He said he had to be con­cerned with the pris­ons sys­tem based on the man­date giv­en to him by so­ci­ety of which the San­ta Rosa Heights com­mu­ni­ty was a part.