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Layoffs, closures wear on local residents - Nov 17, 2003 The news seems to get worse and worse. Longview, WA - Weyerhaeuser Co. said last week it will shut down its fine paper machine in Longview and lay off 119 workers. Longview Aluminum appears to be headed for liquidation, diminishing the hope many workers have that it will once again open its doors. And three downtown businesses closed for good this month. Although the nation gained 126,000 jobs in October, and other data seem to indicate a turnaround for the U.S. economy, the pummeling continues in Cowlitz County, which has lost roughly 1,790 manufacturing jobs during the last two years. Officials are calling it the worst downturn since 1980, when Mount St. Helens blew and mill jobs started to disappear. Many are optimistic a turnaround is coming in the latter part of next year, and proponents of economic development say they are close to bringing new employers to the county. But merchants and even the most upbeat of officials say that this relentless slump is becoming painfully tedious. "I got up this morning feeling pretty discouraged," Longview City Manager Ed Ivey said Friday. "The community's kind of down right now, understandably. We've been dealt some really hard blows." "You get depressed when your friends are losing their jobs," Mayor Mark McCrady said. "It's always hard to see the people you grew up with go through that type of trauma." Still, Ivey, as well as Ted Sprague, who heads the Cowlitz Economic Development Council, both said they are working on deals to bring "family-wage" jobs to the area, which they declined to discuss in detail. "I literally just got off the phone with some good news that's coming," Ivey said. "It won't turn the world upside down and we're still losing more jobs than we're getting, but there's some light at the end of the tunnel. "It doesn't mean anything to the community until it really happens," he continued. "I understand. I've gotten close on some deals and it hasn't happened." Indeed, some are becoming impatient. Howard Hartzog, 71, who has run Longview Shoe Co. & Repair Shop on Commerce Avenue for 55 years, has weathered plenty of troubled times. Asked if the economy has affected his business, he looked up from his Reader's Digest and asked, "What economy?" "This is going to be bad, I think," he said. "There's nothing we're going to do about it. They'll retrain (the displaced workers) but you've got nothing to train them for in this town." Paul Gregg, who owns Pokey Joe's Old Fashioned Pizza, also on Commerce, said he sees "no real response" from city officials when it comes to "seriously pursuing industry, seriously pursuing whatever it's going to take to replace what we're losing." Since the city opened the Mint Farm Industrial Park in a partnership with Weyerhaeuser in 1998, the complex has created roughly seven jobs. In that time, Ivey has become one of Longview's most vocal proponents. He sometimes devotes 90 percent of his time to promoting the Mint Farm, he said, meeting with corporations, showing them the property, talking up the county. Time and again Ivey has rattled off what he believes will be the region's formula for growth and prosperity: Proximity to Interstate 5, a deep-water port along the Columbia River and a major rail line. "I feel like I'm a broken record," he said. "We really have a good story to tell. We just need to roll up our sleeves. When the economy comes back, we're going to get a piece of that action. I just feel certain that we are." During the summer, Ivey commissioned a report on the city's workforce, which was released Thursday. The report, which Ivey will use to market the Mint Farm, said that there are more than 33,000 workers in the area who don't get to use all of their skills in their current jobs. The workers are underemployed and eager to take on new jobs, meaning there is a well-trained workforce in waiting here for prospective employers, the report said. On Thursday, as he presented the report to the City Council, Ivey sounded more the coach giving a half-time locker room speech than the bureaucrat. "This is a great story!" he said. The council said nothing and moved on to the next item on its agenda. McCrady said the officials needed time to digest the information. |