European Economic Woes Put Hundreds of Muskegon Manufacturing Jobs on Hold

Ouch! OUCH! I'm heartbroken. My heart, broken. BROKEN. OOOOUCH.

I read the front page story in the local newspaper and felt a combination of "of course" and heart broken. I mean, of course, right? OF COURSE. Of. COURSE. My wife, the eternal cynic warned me. Curse my hopeful spirit. Slamming my fingers in the door over and over and over again.

Heartbroken.

That's really the only way to describe how I'm feeling after reading that the advanced battery manufacturing plant planned to begin production in Muskegon this year has been delayed for another two years. Seven hundred jobs put on hold.

This one plant would have tipped the balance in Muskegon County out of chronic, long term high unemployment. It would have replaced, at least in numbers, the hundred hear old paper mill that closed its doors years ago.

MUSKEGON TOWNSHIP — Turmoil in the European financial markets has contributed to a nearly two-year delay in the original plans of fortu PowerCell Inc. to build an advanced battery plant in Muskegon Township.

[snip]

The two-phase development was projected to have created 745 jobs with an overall $670 million investment. Community leaders, job seekers, contractors and industrial suppliers were thrilled when the Michigan Legislature in December 2009 created a special $135 million battery tax credit for fortu's Muskegon development.

I remember a freezing cold, blizzardy December in 2009 when a group of friends and I met with our local state representative at a coffee place to talk to her. We had heard that a tax credit for a large battery manufacturing plant had been approved by our legislature...but none of us believed it was for real.

We asked our State rep "Is this for real? Is this REALLY going to happen? Is this actually happening?"

She shook her head and said "SO MANY PEOPLE have asked me that question. Nobody wants to get their hopes up. But yes. Yes. This is actually happening."

After so many false starts, it was hard to believe. But I let myself believe it.

My wife was all like "Right. I'll believe it when I see it. Not. Gonna. Happen."

And I was all like "OH COME ON! Stop being such a naysayer. THIS TIME it's for real. This it IT. "

They were gonna start manufacturing THIS YEAR. HIRING THIS YEAR. After more than a decade of crappy, crappy, crap crap and hardship. This plant...it was a large part of our ticket out. We'd get out of this shit, continue to diversify and lure folks here and we'd never ever look back.

The company says it's merely a delay. And maybe it is. Maybe it's a two year delay, and folks who have been struggling for so long now need to hang on for another two years. Or maybe it's simply not going to happen.

I do not enjoy this business of waiting around for it to rain. A community simply can't wait for large corporations to get off their fragile and skittish duffs to come in and create jobs. It's the small businesses that, in the long term, will make the difference. The small, mom and pop shops that are vested in the community and have no other option but to stick it out in our neighborhoods. This large, international corporation crap takes control of our own economic destinies out of our hands.

Screw those guys.

We had to add MORE SEATS for our renewable energy presentation!

Last night our group, the West Michigan Jobs Group, hosted a showing of Carbon Nation and renewable energy presentation at the local library. As a side note I want to stress that the group has about a dozen people all working their butts off to promote wind power and green jobs in Muskegon, Ottawa, and Oceana Counties. It's our group. Our. We. Us.

And we got a nod to our efforts in the local paper in an editorial about Muskegon's mushrooming renewable energy plans....

But, Muskegon County wouldn't even have this opportunity if a group of Muskegon residents hadn't taken the initiative a year ago to let wind developers know this county wouldn't turn its nose up at jobs related to green energy like neighboring counties had.

That's US! Woohoo! And now we're working to do some more, starting with local showings of Carbon Nation.

The turnout at the first showing was great. The librarian who helped to set up the room said she always put out 30 chairs just to be safe. Well...we filled them all, and had to set up more.



There was even a line:



The movie is a VERY TIMELY renewable energy primer...timely because a LOT of the things they talk about in the movie are happening here in Muskegon and they're happening All At Once:

The most recent thing to happen here is a FEDERAL STIMULUS grant of 3.2 Million Dollars is coming to Muskegon to help build renewable energy solutions for low to mid income families AND non-profit organization in the area that benefit disadvantaged communities. Every Woman's Place, for example, is getting a solar array on the roof. AWESOME.

MUSKEGON — The Muskegon-Oceana Community Action Partnership's solar energy project gives a new meaning to “empowering” the poor.

MOCAP recently received a $3.2 million U.S. Department of Energy grant — federal “stimulus" funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — to provide renewable energy installations to Muskegon-area nonprofits serving low-income people.

Another 110 middle- and low-income homeowners in Muskegon and Oceana counties will receive similar active and passive solar energy devices. Installation of the devices by local contractors already is underway, with the project expected to be completed by March.

See that? "Installation of the devices"? Translation: JOBS! Putting people to WORK.



Another benefit of the stimulus? The Fortu PowerCell advanced battery manufacturing plant in Muskegon has begun construction...that's MORE jobs building the plant, AND more jobs when it starts making batteirs. Hundreds of them. HUNDREDS.

The Muskegon Commissioners just completed and approve the lease agreement for a 100 MW wind farm in Muskegon County's massive waste water treatment facility....

AND!

AND

AND two huge companies are looking to create an industrial park in the Muskegon area, focused on creating wind turbine parts:

MUSKEGON — Two leading West Michigan's companies have joined forces to plan a Muskegon manufacturing center designed to support the state's growing commercial wind industry.

L3 Combat Propulsion Systems in Muskegon and Rockford Berge in Grand Rapids have established the Michigan Wind Energy Consortium, which includes other companies, with the intention of forming an industrial center.

The consortium is not a developer of wind farms but a group of companies and supporting agencies that would build parts for wind turbines, ship those parts around the globe and service the land-based wind industry.

And they want to do it from Muskegon.

Seriously...it's like a dream come true. If we can secure these industries. If we can MAKE things again. If we can DIVERSIFY our economy into new industries....

...we can FINALLY be putting people back to work. Muskegon has had a rough 30 years, with ups and downs, but mostly downs with double digit unemployment as often as not. Our downtown has been literally bulldozed to the ground so we could start over. And the people here have been trying like HELL to re-invent the economy here for decades, trying to add more diverse industries to the mix. And it seems like we're right on the edge of actually doing it RIGHT NOW.

Stay tuned.





Hat Tip to the Sierra Club for letting us use the movie!

Muskegon Chronicle Editorial Board Shreds Oceana County Planning Commissions Offshore Wind Power Claims

This is pretty wonderful: The Muskegon Chronicle editorial board released a scathing criticism of the Anti-Offshore-Wind-Power Oceana County Planning Commission. Paula Holmes-Greeley takes the commission to task for their strangely timed news releases.

Unless you've been following the sordid details it's a bit inaccessible so I'll sum up: the Oceana Planning Commission issued new and bizarre, unsubstantiated claims about an offshore wind feasibility study they rejected 16 months ago.

The planning commission's news release is a transparent contrivance to make a case that a new State offshore wind regulatory frame should give undue decision making power to lakeshore municipalities. Basically...if 10 lakeshore communities wanted the proposal and ONE did not, the ONE could veto the whole thing for everybody.

Paula Holmes-Greeley of the Muskegon Chronicle Editorial Board pretty much shreds them:

Their press release said the planners conducted a study — after they had made their decision to reject the proposal — and discovered information about the number of jobs the project would have provided. It focused on where the construction of the bases for the turbines would have been located and whether it was even possible to build them at the proposed site.

In any case, they argued that would have meant fewer jobs in West Michigan and they wondered if Scandia hadn't done the study themselves or if the company had deliberately misled government officials and the public.

The only problem is the information the planners uncovered about the work site for the bases had been publicly reported nearly two years ago. Other arguments presented by the planners about a visit to the Norwegian firm that has constructed similar bases were undocumented.

[snip]

When the planners voted to reject the wind farm 16 months ago, they didn't turn down the project, they turned down the opportunity for a feasibility study that would have determined the viability of a Lake Michigan project. It also would have looked into the other issues that the Oceana planners now claim to have uncovered. Several other more serious issues like the effect of wind turbines on wildlife and other environmental factors also would have been reviewed.

But the Oceana planners rejected that opportunity.

A Peach is a Moment

A peach is a moment in time. It's can't be stopped, or hurried, or held in stasis. A peach, a ripe peach, is just a moment.

The past few weeks have been high peach season in West Michigan. The farmer's market has full, round peaches overflowing in pint and peck and half bushel baskets. Pinkish ones, small orange ones, pale, nearly white fuzzy ones.

I buy small quantities of peaches. Only as many as we can reasonably consume in a short time.

While I buy tomatoes, beets, apples, pears, cauliflower by the half bushel or bushel, I buy peaches by the pint or if pie is to be made, a half peck.

They'll ripen all at once, in the refrigerator, on the counter. No matter what you do, they'll ripen. And all at once. Suddenly the same peach, once ripe, feels heavier, as though it swelled up over night. And it's soft, with a little squeeze to it. It's ripe. And it's sweet. And just the touch of a knife opens it, and somehow the juice is contained, suspeded in the pulp and flesh of the fruit. Open the fruit to soon, and it's hard and flavorless. Too late and the juice falls out before eating it. But at just the right moment, a window in time, the flesh is sweet and full and juicy and flavorful, and the floral scent fills your nose and lingers on your hands.

A ripe peach excites all the senses.

I don't can peaches.

I don't bother.

A canned peach is an approximation of a peach. It's a re-animated body of a peach. It is the vague suggestive flavor of a peach.

A peach can't be held in time.

It doesn't have the loyalty, and durability of an apple, which you can dry or smash into a sauce and put it in the stasis of a can for years and recover a high level of joy. Especially if you're opening a honey crisp apple sauce, which is almost maple-syrup-ish, almost carmalized.

An apple can defy time. An apple will wait for you.

But a peach won't. A peach can't. A peach is more than just flavor, or sweetness. It's texture, scent, the sound of biting into it.

You can't hold it.

You can't put it into stasis to enjoy later.

The summer winds down, and the peaches hang heavy on the trees until they find their ways into piles in baskets at the farmer's market. And for that moment and that season, there is nothing so beautiful as a fresh, ripe peach. Close your eyes and feel it between your teeth as it fills your senses. There's a new chill in the air. And the wind is picking up. Blue days turn to overcast, and fog moves in off the lake each morning. The edges of the trees are red. There's a light, sweet, burning oakwood smell to the air in the evenings as people take the edge off the colder nights.

And then it's gone until next year.

Crazy West Michigan Conservative May Face Primary from Crazier West Michigan Conservative

Uh oh...looks like there's a potential primary candidate planning a move against Bill Huizenga (MI-2)

Meet State Representative Dave Agema who represents some townships in Ottawa County, Michigan. He's a Republican.

He hates Gay people.

Agema has a new plan for sticking it to the gays and universities. A House panel on Tuesday moved out his bills prohibiting any public entity...from offering domestic partner benefits*

He has proposed bills that would cut state funding by 5% for any university offering benefits for same sex partnerships.

He hates, hates, hates muslims

Rep. Dave Agema (R-Grandville) has taken a break from his obsession with sticking it to gays and is now going after Muslims, but says the folks who disagree with him are the real bigots. He's introduced a bill effectively banning Sharia law in Michigan, which solves a completely made-up problem, as it's not in place anywhere in the state (not even Dearborn).

He put forward plans to divert 80% the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund.

He successfully agitated to get 30,000 students kicked off of Michigan's food assistance.

And he's mad as all heck that Bill Huizenga voted to pass the budget extension.

Now he's got a wart on his fanny giving him the fidgets. Bill Huizenga's seat doesn't look like a bad place to be sitting, apparently. 2012 is going to be a LOT more fun than I imagined.