PONTIAC - Brian McSherry said he stands to lose about 30 to 50 accounts at his independent insurance agency in Pontiac if the local prison closes and takes about 600 jobs with it, but he is more concerned with the bigger picture. | More prisoners transferred | Feds raise red flag about leasing lottery

"It will be a big blow to the community as the prison has always been a significant employer," he said while working Monday afternoon at McSherry Agency Inc. "I think that a lot of businesses in town will suffer since they are a big clientele to the area, and not just with me in insurance."

"It will hurt us," he said.

The Illinois Department of Corrections told the prison's unions Friday that the state will close the 137-year-old, maximum-security prison by Dec. 31. While the notice formally triggers talks with unions about the future of the prison's workers, the department already has begun moving prisoners to accommodate Pontiac's inmates.

While local leaders pledged Monday to keep fighting, they also looked to a future without the prison.

"Pontiac is resilient," Mayor Scott McCoy said Monday. "There's no giving up here, and we will find a way. Life will go on and Pontiac will continue."

The state has said closing Pontiac's prison and moving most of the inmates to the new but unused prison at Thomson will save millions of dollars and enhance prison security. Opponents say it will cause overcrowding at other prisons and cost the local economy $54 million a year.

"Our plan to close Pontiac and open Thomson, a $140 million state-of-the-art facility which has been sitting mostly vacant since 2001, will save the taxpayers," DOC Spokeswoman Januari Smith said, adding it also is safer for staff. "The sight lines (for guards) at Thomson are better than in Pontiac, and (it is) just better in general for the staff, officers and the inmates."

It was clear Monday that the issue was still on the minds of many people in Pontiac.

Lifelong Pontiac residents Harold and Bonnie Schroeder offered their views as they walked downtown.

"We just feel that it's not right that this is happening," Bonnie Schroeder said.

"It's going to affect a lot of families in Pontiac," Harold Schroeder said. "It seems awfully sudden."

Although Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced in May he wanted to close the prison by early 2009, the decision to close it earlier, on Dec. 31, came as a surprise.

Karen Therian at Kupferschmid HVAC Inc. said she was concerned for the prison guards and their families because keeping their DOC jobs may mean having to move away from Pontiac.

"I wouldn't want to be uprooted like that, and with the way jobs are nowadays," she said.

Local officials wanted to reassure people Monday that they are continuing to do what they can to overturn the decision.

Sen. Dan Rutherford, R-Chenoa, said he will do everything legally and ethically possible to prevent the closure, but he also plans to help residents if the prison should close.

"We are not throwing in the towel, but in the same vein we have to be preparing," Rutherford said.

Preparing for the closure will involve job placements and transfers for the prison workers, and the unions will handle most of that, he said. It also may mean looking at ways to provide job opportunities and obtain retraining grants for those who lose their jobs.

Then there will be planning for what to do with the prison site itself.

McCoy said American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which is leading a lawsuit to the closure decision, plans to take prison supporters on a bus trip Nov. 19 to Springfield. Details on how people could participate were not finalized Monday afternoon.