FLORENCE, COLO. — Like many folks in this tranquil town, Patty Liberty has no problem living just down the road from some of the world's most notorious terrorists.
Zacarias Moussaoui, known as "the 20th hijacker" for his attempts to join in the Sept. 11 attacks, resides at the supermax prison just outside the city limits. So do would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid and Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski lives there too.
"We've had horrible people; you don't even think about it," said Liberty, 36 and a mother of two who works at a local gas station. How would she feel should the Obama administration move detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the maximum-security prison, a step that Colorado's senators and the congressman representing the area say would be too risky?
"As long as they keep them where they're supposed to be," Liberty said with a shrug.
It's the hottest debate in Washington -- where to put hard-core terrorists once President Obama shutters Guantanamo. The Senate last week overwhelmingly rejected providing funds to close the U.S. military prison in Cuba, saying that no community in America would want terrorism suspects in its backyard.
Maybe they haven't been to Florence. Starved for jobs 17 years ago, the town of 3,600 residents bought a chunk of land outside its borders and gave it to the federal government to build a maximum-security prison to house the worst of the worst.
Most locals don't blink at the idea of taking Guantanamo detainees -- and even the ones who object acknowledge that the issue has yet to replace cows, horses and the high school football team as a leading topic of conversation.
"People here don't care about it," said Bob Wood, editor and publisher of the community newspaper, the Florence Citizen. "We pretty much feel that if they ship them here, these guys [the federal prison guards] will take care of them."
This doesn't mean that everyone is blase about Guantanamo alumni. "They're much more skilled in being devious and getting around a system such as supermax," said Realtor Marilyn Snellstrom.
But that's a minority view. "There haven't been any escapes out there, and these guys aren't going anywhere," said City Manager Tom Piltingsrud. "I brought it up at our local Rotary Club meeting on Thursday, and nobody voiced a concern."
