PONTIAC - In what is seen as a blow to efforts to save Pontiac Correctional Center, a judge rejected a request Wednesday to block a plan to transfer some of its inmates as early as Friday. | Mayors raise caution flags about prison transfers | Governor hands off tricky spending question

"One of the toughest things that a judge has to do is to make a decision that people do not want to hear," Ford County Circuit Judge Stephen Pacey said after hearing the case at the Livingston County Courthouse. "One of the toughest things that a judge has to do is also to follow the law even when they don't agree with it."

Citing precedent in a previous appellate court ruling, Pacey denied a temporary restraining order sought by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, the union representing most of the prison's workers.

AFSCME officials said after Wednesday's ruling that they plan to appeal.

For now, the state has the authority to begin the transfers, which are expected to start with 50 medium-security Pontiac prisoners being moved Friday to minimum-security East Moline Correctional Center. Fifty more inmates are expected to be transferred from Pontiac's medium-security unit to another minimum-security facility in Taylorville next week.

Inmates who are being transferred are either already minimum-security inmates or will be reclassified, prison officials said.

"It was interesting to listen to the judge . . . and unfortunately in this case, it looked like he had to follow the law (instead of) doing what is right," Pontiac Mayor Scott McCoy said. "It's a disappointing step in the process."

Assistant Attorney General Karen McNaught said the decision to reject the temporary restraining order was correct.

"The plaintiffs haven't shown any irreparable harm that will be done as a result of these transfers," she said.

The union argues the plan to move those prisoners is the first step in an Illinois Department of Corrections effort to close the prison while a lawsuit intended to save the prison remains pending.

"Movements of inmates such as these are very unusual," AFSCME attorney Stephen Yokich said in the motion seeking to block the transfers. "They are consistent with the implementation of the plan to close the prison."

The governor says closing Pontiac and moving most of its maximum-security prisoners to an unused prison in Thomson will save about $4 million a year. The closure is supposed to be complete by February.

Opponents of the move say the closure will cost the region's economy about $54 million.

Pacey said he "reluctantly" had to follow an appellate court ruling stemming from the 2002 closure of The Illinois Youth Center in Valley View, a juvenile detention center in the St. Charles area. AFSCME sued then-Gov. George Ryan to prevent the transfer of the juvenile offenders held there, but the union lost in court and also lost an appeal.

"Even though I don't agree with what the executive branch is doing or the appellate court opinion, I cannot make up or change the law," Pacey said.

The union waged a similar battle about that same time to stop Ryan from closing Vienna Correctional Center, but McNaught said Ryan reversed that decision before a court rendered a final decision in that lawsuit.

Union officials previously cited the Vienna case in support of the current lawsuit to stop the state from closing the Pontiac prison.

The union, Pontiac area officials and others associated with the prison sued the state last month to stop the closure. They argue the state must keep the prison open because the state budgeted money to run it this fiscal year.

Kurt Erickson contributed to this report.