Ironton Mayor Rich Blankenship will have the opportunity to ask the director of the Ohio Department of Youth Services some tough questions to which more than 350 families would like the answers.

The mayor will meet with the state official next week as he lobbies against the planned September closing of the Ohio River Valley Juvenile Correctional Facility in Franklin Furnace. More than 80 Lawrence Countians work at the Scioto County youth prison, with about half of those individuals living inside the city limits.

Mayor Blankenship says he will continue to provide a voice against this and fight for those jobs.

Although the state has provided a number of statistics that show this prison was among the most expensive to operate, they have failed to offer up clear answers on other aspects of this decision.

We hope Blankenship takes advantage of this opportunity to ask the director some key questions.

Some good starting points would be:

What process was used to determine these changes? Were alternatives considered? What is the future of these employees? What does the state plan to do with the facility? What is the cost of upgrading the other facilities where these youth will be transferred and does that outweigh the savings from the closure? Were any administrative or operational changes looked at prior to this?

All these are fair questions about how tax dollars will be spent and how these changes will impact Southern Ohio family. We hope the mayor is able to get some answers.