It is instructive for officials of local-level governmental entities to watch what is happening in units of government around them. By doing that they can avoid others’ errors but also obtain valuable guidance on how to pursue their own projects or other initiatives.

They also can obtain valuable perspectives on how to justify what they are seeking to do and regarding the steps and strategies necessary to accomplish their objective or objectives.

Apply that thinking to the situation involving the Blair County Prison, which has been on “life support” for decades as county leaders, fearful of backlash from taxpayers over potential tax increases, have kicked the proverbial can down the road, avoiding new construction while allowing construction costs to increase and each year make pursuing such a project less palatable.

During the course of those decades, no real leadership stepped forward to declare “we can make a new prison happen because we will find a way.” In place of such determination, county taxpayers were assuaged with the valid, although unproductive message from their leadership that “we are again able to balance the budget without a tax increase.”

While avoiding a tax increase is excellent and generally in the taxpayers’ best interests, facing the inevitable only after costs have increased markedly is not.

Had Blair County’s need for a new prison been acknowledged and pursued 20 or 25 years ago, the county could have built the prison for a fraction of the cost of building it now or at some point going forward.

Had the new prison been built a couple of decades ago, it reasonably could have been constructed with excess capacity so some prisoners from overcrowded lockups in other counties could be housed here on a fee basis, helping to pay the new prison’s construction cost or for its ongoing operation.

Butler County’s new prison built about two decades ago had that money-making ability from the moment construction was completed. Blair County has spent much of the past two decades essentially ignoring reality that the current life support was doomed to failure.

Anyone who read reporter

Kay Stephens’ front-page Mirror article of July 22 — “Prison Crumbling” — and reflected on the message “Aged lockup deals with abundance of rodents, facility upkeep issues” should have pondered how such an important facility — indeed, an important public service — was allowed to become such a liability — such a financial albatross — for a county so otherwise modern-thinking.

Politicians’ past self-gratification of their ability to keep taxes low is not looking as much like an asset now, decades later, but county taxpayers already paying a higher tax bill due to reassessment don’t necessarily have to be overburdened financially by a new-prison project if leaders pursue a multi-pronged strategy on behalf of new construction.

County leaders should reach out to state and federal lawmakers to research possible available money that could be granted or loaned to the county. It is reasonable to wonder, in this presidential election year, whether there are any funds not yet allocated for vital projects like this one.

Are there any entities, individual or corporate-based, who would be willing to make a generous donation to the county for this important objective?

Humane conditions should exist inside as well as outside a prison. Blair officials need to engage in some serious brainstorming.