EDITORIALS : Another blow
Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/224985/
THE NEWS from Booneville hasn’t
been good in the weeks since
Easter Sunday. That was the day a fire destroyed most of the big meat-processing plant in town, putting 800 workers out of a job overnight. Fortunately, nobody was killed in the fire, although nearly 1, 000 residents of Booneville had to flee their homes for a while because of an ammonia leak. In the days afterward, Booneville took stock of the damage. Everybody hoped Cargill would choose to rebuild the plant. That hope has now been dashed.
Cargill has decided not to rebuild. Some jobs are being shifted to other Cargill plants. But the reality is that many—if not most—of those 800 workers now must find something else to do.
The blow fell hardest on those who lost their jobs. But the disappointment was also evident in all who had tried to make rebuilding the plant in Booneville an attractive prospect for Cargill. The city had offered more than a million dollars’ worth of land and about $ 200, 000 in road work. The state pitched in, too, promising other incentives and grants if Cargill would stay in Booneville. It was a familiar position for those promoting economic development: Hands out, hopes up—and then the prospect decides to go elsewhere.
Cargill offered its condolences. There was no problem with the workers. The incentives were attractive. But the decision came down—as business decisions do—to the economics involved. This time, the numbers weren’t in Booneville’s favor. Cargill calculated that the company had already lost a third of the plant’s business. The rest had been shifted to other plants. And rebuilding would take as much as 22 months, instead of the 10 to 12 originally estimated. Even if the company rebuilt the plant, many workers would have taken other jobs by then. They’d be forced to. The pool of workers to draw from just wouldn’t be the same some two years after the fire.
Other factors probably were involved, too. The plant in Booneville processed meat that had to be trucked in from slaughterhouses elsewhere. Reorganizing the company’s operations could save on transportation costs, a growing consideration in these days of more and more expensive fuel.
None of the perfectly sound business reasons softens the blow. The loss of the Cargill plant means a reduction in property and sales taxes for Booneville and Logan County. And the schools stand to lose state money if enrollment goes down because families are leaving Booneville.
But no giving up is allowed. Booneville will have to deal with the ever-widening results of the fire. Which means even greater efforts to recruit other businesses to invest in that town. The next step is working with the state to devise still another economic development plan. Then comes the hard work of getting the word out to industries and finding the right prospects for Booneville. It’s no easy job. But Booneville will do it. Because it has to. And, lest we forget, it’s done it before.