By Chris Taylor
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-863641.mp3
State Rep. Brent Yonts (D-Greenville)
Greenville, KY – Kentucky State Representative Brent Yonts of Greenville has pre-filed a bill aimed at canceling a $12 million annual contract with a private company that provides food to the Commonwealth's prison system. He says the quality and quantity, and contaminants of food provided by Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services is unacceptable. Yonts gets some four to five pieces of mail a day from inmates complaining about the problems.
Yonts-- I'm also getting them from people you wouldn't expect. For example, a transportation worker saying that they ought to check into the foodstuffs that are sold in canteens, because they tend to be there and have expired dates on the cans.
Yonts is also concerned about reports of live bugs and fecal matter found in food at several correctional facilities throughout the state. He points to a recent case of massive food poisoning at Western Kentucky Corrections Complex in Fredonia, which sickened around 300 inmates. Yonts adds the issue was not presented by his son who is serving a murder sentence at the Luther Luckett Correctional facility in LaGrange. Aramark representative Sarah Jarvis says allegations about the food are based on "anecdotal" information that is not supported by the facts.