By Sharon Michael, The Chronicle, 4/14/98
Escalating costs are responsible for Draper Valley Farms' decision not to exercise its option on a 15-acre site at the Port of Centralia.
Instead of building a new chicken-processing plant in Centralia, the company will expand its Mount Vernon plant to meet its short-term need for additional production capacity.
"It was a difficult decision," Draper Valley Vice President John Jefferson said Monday.
The company invested three years in selecting a site for a new plant, and nearly another year working on plant design.
"It was more than we anticipated," Jefferson said of cost estimates that grew from $10 million to $18 million since last summer.
"We can do some things here at much less cost that will see us through a couple of years," Jefferson added.
He said expanding the Mount Vernon plant could provide enough additional production capacity to meet the company's needs for the next three to four years.
Centralia Mayor Jessie Brunswig is disappointed at the loss of the 200 to 300 jobs the company projected by the end of its first year of operation.
"That just sickens me," Brunswig said Monday. "I think it's a real loss."
Brunswig is concerned that continuing cutbacks in East Lewis County mills and the growing need for entry-level jobs for welfare-to-work clients will cause long-term residents to leave the county unless new industries come into the area soon.
"We've got a 9 percent unemployment rate now," she pointed out. "People in the community need to realize, time is not on our side."
Jefferson said opposition by some citizens was not the determining factor in Draper Valley's decision to abandon its plans to build here.
He said the company was treated well by port and city officials, and received encouragement from local residents.
"They weren't against Draper Valley as much as they were against the sound of chicken processing," Brunswig said of those area residents who opposed the plant.
John Regan, developer of Centralia's outlet malls and the Centralia Square Antique Mall, said he was labeled a Draper Valley opponent simply because he questioned port and city officials about their decision to encourage the company to locate in Centralia.
Regan said officials had visions of the port becoming a major meat-processing area.
"I just felt we had to stop and see if this is the vision the community subscribes to," Regan said.
Regan foresees economic development coming from within the community as an extension of existing resources, rather than from outside influences such as recruiting new industries. But that is for the whole community to decide, he added.
"Leadership has to come from the community, supported by the city council," Regan said. "I think we've got to pave our own path."
Regan and Fords Prairie resident Wendy Tripp organized a public discussion of the proposed chicken processing plant in February. Some of Draper Valley's local contract growers attended that meeting to support the company.
Some Draper Valley critics focused on the city's plans to locate a new multimillion-dollar wastewater treatment plant near the proposed Draper Valley site. They claim the treatment plant's proposed location and size were determined by the company's high-volume water and wastewater discharge needs.
City officials said the company's usage would help hold down sewer rates for residential users by expanding the customer base. But additional capacity to serve new residential and industrial users would be built into the new plant regardless of Draper Valley's decision.
"I don't think the city has ever counted on Draper Valley," Brunswig said. "We can't afford to."
Utilities Director Dick Southworth said Draper Valley's decision will give the city some "breathing room." The company's high-volume demands would have required interim modifications to the existing wastewater treatment plant.
"We were always concerned about how soon Draper Valley would open its doors," Southworth said.
"The port has other clients in the pipeline," he added. "We don't know their specific operational requirements yet, but we may not want to back off of Draper's needs." He said planned residential development also will require additional capacity, as well as add to the customer base.
Preliminary plans for the expandable modular plant took into account residential and industrial growth projections, as well as the possibility that the plant might eventually operate as a regional facility.
Draper Valley's decision sends port and city officials back to the drawing board to plan for the needs of new potential industrial customers. But Regan says it also provides an opportunity for citizens to get involved in shaping the economic growth of the community.
"I think the community should come up with clear criteria about what we're looking for in the kind of development we want," Regan said.
He said those decisions should not be made by the port or by the Lewis County Economic Development Council.
Wendy Paulin, port director, and Bill Lotto, EDC director, have invited citizens to provide them with names of companies they would like approached about locating in Lewis County.
"It really takes a community to recruit a company," Paulin said.
The port's three-member staff depends on the EDC's marketing expertise. But, Paulin said, "It's really the company that has to decide."