Photo by Carly Pearson
From left: Emporia State University President Michael Lane, City Manager Matt Zimmerman, Chamber of Commerce President Jeanine McKenna and City Commissioner Jeff Longbine are part of a press conference Friday evening to discuss the layoffs of Tyson employees and the effect on the city.
The city’s message at two Friday news conferences was clear: Tyson Foods’ decision to discontinue its slaughter operations in Emporia and eliminate 1,500 jobs is a setback to the community, but it’s not catastrophic.
Just hours after hearing the news, City Manager Matt Zimmerman was thinking about another Kansas town — one that suffered a real catastrophe last May — as an example of how well Emporia could rebound.
“If Greensburg can rebuild, and this is only one employer out of thousands in Emporia, there’s no reason to think that we won’t be just as good as Greensburg is already becoming,” he said.
Zimmerman represented the city at a news conference Friday afternoon along with Chamber of Commerce President Jeanine McKenna, Emporia State University President Michael Lane, City Commissioner Jeff Longbine and state Rep. Don Hill. The same five leaders, plus state Sen. Jim Barnett, held another news conference in the evening for the benefit of out-of-town media.
Reaction at both news conferences featured tempered disappointment, with city leaders staying composed as they looked for positives and looked ahead to how Emporia will recover.
“Like we’ve heard from many employers, there’s not enough of a trained workforce — well, there is now,” Zimmerman said. “So, hopefully, there’ll be much less of an impact than we’re all obviously concerned about... We’re also recognizing that this is an opportunity to diversify.”
Tyson’s decision caught city leaders completely by surprise. Zimmerman said he had “no inkling” that the company was considering the restructuring. He and McKenna said they were happy that Tyson had decided to stay in Emporia and continue to use the facility for specialty processing, beef processing and storage.
“I think we feel very confident and feel good about our discussions with them,” McKenna said, “that they still have the confidence in our community, as we do in them, to make this portion of the Tyson plant here in Emporia strong and moving forward with that.”
The process of assessing the impact of the layoffs on the city will begin Monday.
Hill said there were both state and federal provisions in place to provide “impact aid” to communities for situations like the one Emporia now faces.
“Sometimes it is economic displacement because of circumstances like this; sometimes it’s because of natural disasters,” Hill said. “But there’s resources to draw on. I’m sure we’ll be assessing all that.”
Zimmerman said much of the city’s response would have to play itself out, because the city has no idea how many workers will stay and how many will go. He and McKenna had already talked to U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, who told the city it has the full support of his office. Zimmerman said the city would work with Moran to put together a response team of state and federal officials.
“What we’re going to try and do is have one coordinated response so that we can get the information out to our residents,” Zimmerman said. “We may even set up some sort of a response office kind of thing so people can go and get that information as well.”
The elimination of 1,500 jobs will leave Tyson with about 900 employees at its Emporia site.
Tyson will leave its slaughter equipment at the Emporia plant. Mayor Julie Johnson said Friday afternoon she had met with Tyson officials at about 2:30, about a half hour before their meeting with McKenna and Zimmerman.
Johnson, who was headed out of town this weekend for vacation, said she inquired about the possibility that Tyson might resume slaughter operations in Emporia.
“And they didn’t rule it out, but they didn’t hold out a lot of hope that that would happen, either,” Johnson said.
Still, the city is optimistic that Emporia will recover.
“To me, as the city manager, my feeling is yes, this is going to hurt, and nobody’s saying that it isn’t,” Zimmerman said. “And yes, we’re very concerned for our residents and how this is going to impact them and their families. We understand that.
“But we also know long-term that these jobs have been absorbed by this community before, and we don’t see any reason to think that it won’t (happen again).”
Comments
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Posted by mlynarr (anonymous) on January 27, 2008 at 12:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I am sure that everyone would back the opinon of someone that has the username gayzettesux. Dude get a life, sign ur name to these retarded things you say! my name is rob fool
Posted by rdgrey (anonymous) on January 27, 2008 at 8:11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Im not sure if typing is a requirement for city manager but alot of ppl type with one finger. I for one can type using the pecking method faster then alot of ppl who type normally. Not that I am backing Zimmerman on his statements, nut when you have a user name that puts down a certain group of people and a paper that at least lets us state our opinions unlike most papers, you are just making yourself look even more foolish than those you are writing about. By the way my name is Bob.
Posted by justthinkin (anonymous) on January 27, 2008 at 12:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm confused.... what does typing have to do with the situation? Just a reason to be negative, I guess. At least someone (Zimmerman) is trying to stay positive & I'm he sure will work very hard to make the best of this. I don't agree with everything the man has said & done, but that is my right. I just don't understand why a person's typing skills are an issue to discuss.
Posted by hottopics (anonymous) on January 27, 2008 at 12:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Zimmerman is new to this community but he is headed in the right direction with our town. You cant expect him to turn things around over night. It takes awhile to clean up someone elses mess.
But I do not agree that we will just absorb it as before and move on. We have had to many of these manufacturers closing to close together and not new ones built and up and running fast enough.
I would feel like the Tyson employees do right now, helpless at this point and unsure of what the future holds.
Posted by fig9 (anonymous) on January 27, 2008 at 2:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
My question is the following: where are the thousands of jobs zimmerman refers to??? In order for someone to make a living they must earn more than $6 an hour, ofcourse zimmerman does not care because he gets payed to say stupid comments such as this not being a catastrophe. He is being naive or stupid in not seeing how this will impact every business in town.
Posted by dhcc66 (anonymous) on January 27, 2008 at 4:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I guess what nobody is looking at is that the entire city has come together to admit that this is a stumbling block of major proportions. Everybody is arguing over the Somali's leaving and the odor being gone....and then about Zimm's typing skills. At least he comes out and says he cares and that he's trying to figure out how to cope with it. If i remember correctly, the only answer you could get out of Steve Commons was that the commission would be taking things under advisement and then they would retire to an "executive session" to talk thing over for real.
Come on people. This is the not the end of Emporia unless you want it to be.
As for fig9's comment about "where are the jobs?"....If somebody with a high school diploma were to start looking around town today, I think they could find a multitude of jobs starting at well over 6 dollars an hour.
Lastly, if you don't like it here or you are afraid of what the future holds and you don't have the guts to suck it up with the rest of us and hold things together, then LEAVE. The US is a huge country with many opportunities. Don't stay here and bash it when the community when it's down.
Posted by admireed (anonymous) on January 27, 2008 at 4:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
dhcc You are right on. Well put!
Posted by alfalfa (anonymous) on January 28, 2008 at 5:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Of course Emporia isn't just going to disappear from the map, and of course Greensburg got it worse. But this is about as bad as you can get, without Emporia being wiped off the map. How many kids will leave the school system? A few school employees are going to lose their jobs before this is over. Every retailer is going to suffer. How about the housing market? The time it will take to replace even half of these jobs will be too long for most. The city officials are just saying what people want to hear, Emporia has never been through anything like this before, the powers that be are clueless as to what is going to happen.
Posted by dhcc66 (anonymous) on January 28, 2008 at 6:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
alfalfa, you forgot one....
THE SKY IS FALLING!!!
please, let things happen and see where it goes. panic will do nothing for all of us.
also to the gazette, would it be of interest to the readers to have the gazette do a piece about how much of the estimated income generated by the 1500 employees was going out in money wires to other countries without being spent locally?
i'm not saying by any stretch that the loss won't hurt the economy, but how much of that income were we already missing to start out with?
thanks if you consider the story
Posted by alfalfa (anonymous) on January 28, 2008 at 8:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
dhcc66, what do you do for a living out of curiousity? I didn't say the sky is falling,but anyone who thinks that some major changes for the bad aren't on the way is very stupid. How do you suppose you can take 1500 jobs out of this community and not have a devastating impact? I don't care how much money got wired to foreign countries, most of the payroll got spent in Emporia. Did you happen to read how much more it will take area cattlemen to ship cattle to Western Kansas? Do you think they don't spend money in Emporia? My point is that you can't put a happy face on this story. I have already talked to one businessman who does business supplywise with Tyson to the tune of $5000 per month. I don't know what world you live in, but in my world losing $5000 a month in sales is almost like the sky falling. The standard "we will get through this" talk we are hearing from city and county officials is useless. Of course they will, what about the 1500 who have lost their jobs? How would YOU like to try to sell a house now? What about the supporting businesses in this area who do business with Tyson? Pull your head out dhcc, if you were in the position alot of people are today, you might think the sky is falling. There are going to be some people in deep financial trouble here that would not have been had this not happened, due to no fault of their own. Happy talk is not going to help them.
Posted by Renegade (anonymous) on January 28, 2008 at 10:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Happy talk???? maybe not, alfalfa...but, if we all say the Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling, it will for sure.
I have only lived in Emporia for a year....My husband and I moved here from a smaller town in another State...and a Corporation that provided about 1600 jobs to that community, moved their whole operation to Mexico, about 5-6 years before......offering nothing to the 1600 employees they left behind.
Well, when the people..(leaders and community) got together and decided to do something about it....they started talking to Developers and other Businesses.....and, 5 years later that town has nearly doubled in size. Our house sold, with a huge profit, over what it would have sold for 5 years earlier.......and, it has become a wealthy little community. It took a lot of hard work though.
We moved to Emporia, because we wanted to retire, and we liked what we saw here....
About 8 months ago, the TODAY show had some prominent realtors as guests....discussing the drop in home sales, and the economy...When they were asked what Baby Boomers should look for in locations to retire...they were told "The FIRST rule in what NOT to look for when retiring, and buying a home, is a community where there's a Meat Packing Plant."......I cannot find that video, or I would post it.
So...maybe...just maybe...the SKY ISN'T FALLING alfalfa....It sure might feel that way, this morning, for a lot of Emporians....I understand that.
I have worked for Corporations in my life, and felt the sting of losing a job, or being involved in a buy-out, and having to change jobs....It's not easy...and, my heart goes out to every one of you that is waking up in a panic this morning.
I suggest we all support each other....and, get involved with working with our leaders to bring life to Emporia.....Tyson has had too much control over our past...lets not let them control our future too.
I've only lived here a year...and, after making the decision to leave a place we lived in for years, and moving away from most of our family, because we saw a town we thought was beautiful, had youth, because of a College,... and Seniors to retire with.......I'll be damned if I am going to sit back and watch the sky fall, on Emporia...because of Tyson.
Posted by firefly912 (anonymous) on January 28, 2008 at 12:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I've only been in Emporia for a few years (I'm a college student). But I've always rented because my parents and I decided long ago that it was probably not worth investing in a home to live in and then rent out after graduation. After the Tyson announcement and the fact that my landlord is horrible, my parents and I are discussing the purchase of a house. Yes, the housing market will get bad for a while, but there will always be college students looking for affordable housing. If house prices lower, more people could look into investing in a rental property. That would also mean having more money left over after purchase to keep the house up and help offer DECENT affordable housing to incoming students.
Emporia will not disappear. The residents of Emporia can keep that from happening.
Posted by dhcc66 (anonymous) on January 28, 2008 at 12:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Lastly Alfalfa,
I don't think that anybody is smiling or trying to put a "happy" spin on things. I just think, along with at least a few other submitters, that the sky only falls if you let it.
Not so many years ago the Santa Fe Railroad moved out of Emporia and I'm sure if you asked a few people who have been around that long, they would tell you it probably felt the same way then. The key is that Emporia didn't just lay down and die. The city government, the business owners, and the ordinary (or maybe not just ordinary) citizens didn't just say "oh gosh, one business left, lets pack and leave".
As far as the business that I'm in, it's going to be directly impacted by Tyson losing 1500 people, but we around here aren't panicking either. We just have to find a way to pick up the pieces that are left and move on to the next thing.
Posted by Cherry_Bomb (anonymous) on January 29, 2008 at 8:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
-------Comments by Renegade
Posted on January 28 at 9:18 a.m.
On Refugee resettlement
Methusla...I am going to follow your lead, and leave the Forum....I have no more to say about Tyson...(I would be censured, if I did).. I never have had much respect for the Corporation....they just helped confirm my feelings...
LOL it appears that you still have Tyson on your mind Renegade .... you couldnt wait an hour to mention Tyson AGAIN .... wasn't the origional forum on Refugee resettlement where all of this started.... If your so unhappy with the situation then MOVE back to where you came from. The immigration and Refugee problems arent over
just because TYSON had a massive layoff!
Posted by Renegade (anonymous) on January 29, 2008 at 9:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Cherry_Bomb...I replied to your remarks on the other forum..
If you were going to post what I wrote...why didn't you post it all?...
I am a Home owner, and, I pay taxes, shop locally, and, I'm a registered voter...I have some family, and friends in Emporia, and I will not like everything about the community....Do YOU?????
The only thing that will make me leave Emporia, is if you take away my right to speak out.....It's really ok if you disagree with me....That's how we will fix Emporia.....Communicate..and work together.
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