YNKYH8R

I just wanted some people in our BBS community to have an idea of what is happening here in Maine. These three things could potentially be devistating to the Maine ecomony. Times are tough and getting tougher.

BIW MEMO POINTS TO NAVY PLAN TO SINGLE-SOURCE DDX
A memo to Bath Iron Works shipbuilders is yet another sign that the Navy may be moving to have its next-generation destroyer built at a single shipyard.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- On Tuesday, the head of Northrop's Ingalls Shipyard in Mississippi told a business group that the Navy appears to be moving toward a winner-take-all approach to the DDX program.

Wednesday, the memo from BIW President Dugan Shipway also indicated that the Navy wants to see Bath and Ingalls compete head-to-head to build all the ships.

At present, both yards are involved in the design and construction of the DDX. The Navy says it plans to change the acquisition strategy but has yet to provide any specifics.

THE PUSH IS ON TO SAVE PNS, BNAS
Maine is running out of time to convince the Secretary of Defense that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the Brunswick Naval Air Station should remain open.
Tuesday, President Bush appointed the last members of BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closure commission. Not one is from the northeast.

In two months Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is due to submit the list of hundreds of bases he wants closed. Some military experts in Washington believe strategic and geographical changes for the military will work against Maine.

But the state's congressional delegation continues to try to convince the Pentagon that the shipyard and the naval air station remain vital for homeland security.

With just two months to go it is a frantic race to make the case for Maine facilities. After that, if they should be on the list, it will be very difficult to convince commissioners to make changes.

INTERNATIONAL PAPER TO CUT 90 JOBS IN JAY

News that International Paper is slashing 90 jobs from its Androscoggin mill on April 1 comes as no surprise to workers. They were just hoping the rumors wouldn't be true.
Mill Manager Rildo Martini said the number one paper machine, which has been running since 1965, has to shut down because it simply costs too much to operate. The machine makes uncoated freesheet paper, which is used for office papers and forms. Martini said, "It really isn't competitive worldwide, is not competitive in the United States right now."
The shutdown means the loss of 90 jobs, but the mill is hoping to soften the losses by enticing some older workers to take retirement packages and others to take severance pay. "Our big intention is to impact people as less as possible," Martini said.

Workers heard the news starting at around 6:30 Tuesday morning. Pam Osgood, who's worked at the mill 18 years, said the news didn't surprise her, but she's hoping she won't lose too many coworkers. "They say they're hoping not to lay anybody off... hopefully they won't have to."

It's not just the employees that are worried. People in town say they're concerned about the impact of a job loss like this on the entire community. Bob LaFleur, who has run a restaurant in Jay for 13 years, said, "We're a series of small businesses in this area. And most of the people who work at the mill, those are the people who support us. So whenever we lose anything we all feel it."

Les Gatchell works at paris farmers union. "My daughter's boyfriend just took a job there last week. A week ago yesterday. I don't know what's going to happen to him. I haven't even talked to him, so I don't know."

Workers should have some of their questions answered Thursday, when the company plans a meeting to give them more details about the severance plans. Ethan McGrane, who's worked at the mill for two years, is hoping a lot of people take the offers. "I used to work at Rumford and then I got laid off at Rumford and then I came here," he said. "I was hoping to make a career out of working here, but it doesn't look like it's going to be the case."

1000 people work at the Androscoggin Mill. If there are layoffs, International Paper hopes to find some workers jobs at other mills.

The Androscoggin Mill isn't the only plant affected by these job losses. International Paper is shutting down a similar paper machine and eliminating 110 jobs at one of its mills in Florida.

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ARMPIT

nanajoanie

SCARY!! Sounds like NC with job loss. Many of our mills have closed down and gone to Mexico. Many of our woodworking/furniture plants have gone to the Orient. Some of the major pharmacueticals have gone back to their country or origin. I'm thankful I'm retired and don't have to worry about job loss but at the same time, when folks lose their jobs, they pay no taxes or social security again hurting everyone. I haven't a clue where it all ends and sometimes feel bad that I'm unable to offer remedies or possible solutions.

Sending huggles to everyone in Maine.

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Toodles, Nanajoanie

YNKYH8R

The problem that exists is because our local government won’t do anything to entice out of state contractors to set up businesses in Maine; besides the taxes are too high anyway. We have a lot commercial businesses (Lowe’s, Wal-Mart, Home Depot) but these type of businesses don’t run a state.

We had good textile mills and paper mills but they’ve all but shut down. Property state wide got reassessed and now most people can’t afford their property taxes. It was even harder on the coast. Imagine owning a lobster boat or two and owing 200,000 dollars on ocean front property that got assessed for over a million dollars in value. The only people who can afford to buy land now are people from out of state.

Most of the college graduates leave Maine for jobs in New York and Massachusetts. So there is a shortage on teachers, nurses, cops and firemen. Up north whole towns close down because the population is less than 2000 and can’t sustain it self.
I think the number of senior citizens out numbers the younger crowd.
We have the highest ratio of undeveloped land to developed land in New England. They are threatening to shut down BNAS (like I it said the article) because it is no longer a strategic base. And Bath Iron Works (a ship yard with over 150 years experience) is always on the chopping block and will be because the new DDX (destroyer) will be built somewhere else.
The population is 1.3 million and is on a steady decline. Schools are closing down because there aren’t enough students to fill whole grades. So they consolidate schools and students have to drive or be drive almost an hour away from home.
Tourism has been on a steady decline since the mid 90’s. Last year the decline was blamed on weather, I say it is because the is nothing to do up here. Before you know it the US is going to up and give our state to Canada.

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badswife

Our government wants to help everyone but it's own people. We can send millions of dollars to help other countries or we can spend millions of dollars on a war that is not doing anything but killing our soldiers but we can not make sure all of the AMERICAN citizens have food and shelter and proper medical treatment. Makes you proud of our government doesn't it? Just think about some of those people in DC living on your paycheck. No way would they be able to make it. But who are we to question them??? Our government needs alot of help.

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AMERICA NEEDS AN ENEMA

nanajoanie

Sounds a lot like down here. Our property double in taxes a few years ago from $2000 to $4000 and just went up again. Glad I sold my house but still have 24 acres. Makes you want to sell cheaper to get out of the taxes. Schools are overcrowded here but we all say NO MORE TAXES!! Kids are in trailers and walk under covered walkways to the lunchroom or mediaroom. Big deal. The trailers are paid for. Our teachers go elsewhere for higher wages. We have some of the most prestigious colleges in the nation but the graduates go elsewhere for oppourtunity. Our senior population is booming. Seems there are new senior daycare centers popping up everywhere. But Walmart is employing senior citizens as greeters, one at every parking lot doorway. WOW!! That's what maybe 3 employed seniors per city to supplement their income to pay the higher taxes so they aren't forced out of their homes. OK time for me to shut up. Sorry to carry on so. I'm just one of the lucky ones that my kids insisted I live with them and not pay rent or buy another cheaper place. But many are not as fortunate.

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Toodles, Nanajoanie

YNKYH8R

Military towns brace for base closings
Economic 'tsunami' awaits communities when the military moves out

By John W. Schoen
Senior Producer
MSNBC
Updated: 8:39 p.m. ET May 12, 2005


In the early 1950s, when the Navy re-opened a 1500-acre, war-time air base in Brunswick, Maine, residents of the small, coastal community were less than thrilled. The ensuing influx of hundreds of sailors and airmen, along with the resumption of flight operations, drew a less-than-welcome response from the quiet, picturesque town.

Relations became so strained, a former naval officer at the base recalls, the commanding officer and town officials only communicated through intermediaries. But the base commander eventually hit on a plan to win over public opinion. He ordered that all base personnel be paid in cash — in $2 bills.

“Once those $2 bills started circulating through the town, things started getting a lot better as far as relations went,” recalled Rick Terev, a former officer at the Brunswick Naval Air Station, who is now a member of a local task force to save the base from closure.

Now, as the Pentagon begins another round of military base closings, no one needs to be reminded of the economic benefits these facilities provide to local communities. When the list of recommended closures is released Friday, communities that have been targeted will begin the difficult struggle of lobbying to keep their local base open. If they fail at that, they'll begin the even more difficult task of coming up with alternate uses for these sites to replace the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of revenue that will be lost.

“The State of Maine is borrowing $400 million just to pay the bills,” said Terev. “When you take $333 million (a year in military spending) out of one town, it’s going to hurt.”

It's not hard to see why the Pentagon might consider the Brunswick Naval Air Station for closure. As a mainstay of Cold War military strategy, the base was tasked with keeping an eye on the movements of Russian submarines in the North Atlantic. It's mainstay was the P-3 Orion, a long-range, four-engine turboprop designed 47 years ago. (Local officials trying save the base argue that it is still ideally suited for the modern mission of coastal surveillance to support the Department of Homeland Security.)

State and local officials defending the base — the state’s second largest employer — have seen this movie before: Brunswick has been on the list of potential closures during each of the previous rounds in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995. (Having survived those rounds, Brunswick is now the last active-duty military airfield in New England; the next closest is McGuire Air Force Base in southern New Jersey.)

Those four rounds of base closings eliminated some 20 percent of U.S. military facilities, cutting annual defense spending by about $7 billion a year for net savings of roughly $29 billion so far. But taxpayer savings have exacted a price from the 73 communities that lost bases. Some 14 years after the process began, only 72 percent of the estimated of 130,000 jobs lost have been recovered, according to a January, 2005 report by the General Accountability Office. Of 62 communities studied in the report, 30 percent had unemployment rates that were higher than the national average.


Part of the reason for the slow recovery is that it can take years to transfer property once a base has been closed. Of the 504,000 acres of former military bases closed since 1991, about 28 percent of that land has still not been transferred (though more than half of that has been leased.) Some 10 percent of the total has been held up mostly because environmental hazards remain — everything from unexploded ordnance to toxic chemicals. Some $8.9 billion has already been spent on clean-up, and it will take another $3.6 billion to finish the job, according to the GAO.

Now, dozens of communities with vulnerable bases are bracing for the economic impact. The Pentagon has said it expects to save another $7 billion a year from the current round of closings. Last week, Anthony Principi, the head of the nine-member Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which will review the list of targeted bases, said the closings "will be tsunamis in the communities they hit."

Larger communities, with more diversified economies, tend to recover more quickly form the loss of a military base. But for small towns or rural areas — where the military is virtually the only game in town — economic recovery can be tough, according to Patrick O’Brien, director of the Pentagon's Office of Economic Adjustment, which works with communities to redevelop closed bases.

“A lot of times these installations are the equivalent of small, medium to large cities unto themselves,” he said. “And to absorb an additional city’s worth of infrastructure into an existing community can be a very challenging prospect for many communities — even the most sophisticated and the most well-off communities.”

O'Brien's office has already spent close to $2 billion to help communities get through the economic dislocation of losing a major military facility. For many communities, the first step is to look for ways to re-use the existing facilities or adapt them to institutional use such as a medical facility, he said. But many towns with bases that have already survived earlier rounds of closures have already been looked at alternatives and found them to be unworkable.

In Brunswick’s case, the obvious re-use of the local base would be as an airport. With two 8,000 foot runways and a new $8 million air traffic control tower, the base handles some 24,000 landings and takeoffs a year. Over the past two years, over $100 million has been invested in upgrading the facility, including a new $34 million hangar.

But town officials looked at the idea the last time the air station was targeted for closure in 1995. Just 25 miles up the Maine coast from Portland, there isn’t enough commercial passenger traffic to support a second airport, according to Tetrev. And air freight shippers weren’t interested, he said, because they need to be based at airports with commercial flights that can provide backup cargo service in emergencies. Now, with so many other closed air bases converted to other aviation-related uses such as repair facilities, coming up with an aviation-related use will be even tougher, he said.

“In the early round of (base closings), all the aviation facilities that closed down sucked up any of the low hanging fruit,” he said.

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mesue

It seems that having more than one place ready and working to build ships would be seen as essential to homeland security. Not to mention it helps the economy. I recall when Clinton closed bases the republicans on here and everywheres were raising all kinds of objection but for some reason there is very little objection being raised from what I can see about this republican administration doing the same thing.

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Ignorance is bliss but the question is can we afford it?