OK. the level 2 tornado struck inNovember of 2003 AD. M argo brechen Felder. Denken on dining sin /den. Wednesday, March 9, 2005 By Jennifer Scott Cimperman Plain Dealer Reporter Wooster � Second-shift electric lift operator Kurt Thomas noticed the wind pick up as he finished lunch in Building 89, so named for the year it was added to Rubbermaid�s Wooster headquarters. A thunderstorm in November? He slowly opened the cafeteria door, unleashing a vacuum that sent wrappers flying. By the time Thomas returned to his lift, �there was this fog of dust, like it took the ceiling and went like this,� he said, smacking his hands on a table. A little after 7 p.m., a Level 2 tornado had ripped the roof off part of the plant. And left Wooster twisting in the wind. A month later, in December 2003, executives cited $20 million in storm damage among factors leading them to phase out the plant and its 850 manufactur ing and warehouse jobs. An additional 400 administrative and office workers would be moved from Wooster to other offices, taking tax dollars with them. Townspeople balked, but civic leaders had seen it coming. Back in 1998, when homegrown Rubbermaid Inc. announced it would be acquired by out- of-towner Newell Co., the city started to rethink the role of its alter ego and largest employer. It continued to build its rainy day fund for fiscal emergencies. It slowly bought more than 100 acres of farmland for a business park, in part with income taxes on severance packages paid Rubbermaid workers. And as its worst fears were realized, it braced for 2005 � the city�s first full year post-Rubbermaid. Taxes still coming in, but will they be enough? Mayor Jamie Howey proudly points to an $8 million war chest, socked away during the good times � times when mention of Rubbermaid yielded a knowing nod from strangers more familiar with its plastic wastebaskets than the company�s birthplace of Wooster. The city didn�t touch the fund in 2004. Howey expects differently this year. Property taxes aren�t the problem; Rubbermaid sold its former headquarters and plant, 1.3 million square feet, to InSite Realty LLC of Oak Brook, Ill., in January. Between the two, someone will pay $347,000 due this year. Wayne County Auditor Jarra Underwood expects a substantial decrease, however, in tangible personal property taxes assessed on machinery, inventory and equipment such as office computers. Rubbermaid paid $849,000 last year; Underwood won�t know what to expect this year probably until September, when Ohio sends its assessment based on Rubbermaid�s tax filing. What most worries Mayor Howey, elected nearly a decade ago, is lost payroll taxes from Rubbermaid workers, who generated $600,000 annually. (Rubbermaid now employs about 150 at a distribution facility behind its former headquarters). City Finance Director Andrei Dordea said a combination of new jobs and better-paying ones will keep 2005 income tax revenue at $7.9 million, basically the same as last year. The problem is that city expenses are anything but the same, because of needed road improvements, aging city equipment and other must-haves. An estimated $3 million shortfall will be made up from the war chest, Dordea said. At year�s end, Howey will consider whether to ask voters next fall to approve a hike in the city�s 1 percent income tax rate. �This year is the year that�s going to tell the tale,� Howey said, �. . . give us a better long-range outlook.� Other philanthropists fill in to help college A vacant building can�t erase Rubbermaid�s stamp on Wooster. Over the years, the Rubbermaid Foundation donated land for the high school, helped transform a vacant elementary school into the Wayne Center for the Arts and built a home for United Way of Wooster Inc., among other projects. The College of Wooster received $1 million from Rubbermaid in the 1990s. Since the summer of 2000, the start of the college�s fund-raising campaign, the company has given nothing. �No longer can we simply say �thank you� to Rubbermaid and have that mean we thanked everybody,� said R. Stanton Hales, president of the liberal arts college with 1,800 students and an idyllic campus with historic buildings, winding walkways and tall trees. The college�s operating budget remains intact. As part of an Ohio trade group for independent colleges, it pools money with other institutions so none is disproportionately affected by the loss of a major corporation or donor. And the loss of Rubbermaid donations hasn�t deterred other businesses, along with individuals and foundations, from giving $98.3 million toward the college�s campaign, which ends in June 2007. The goal: $122 million. Money includes $8 million from the Walton Family Foundation; Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton�s sons John and Rob attended the college in the late �60s. �One should never depend on one company,� Hales said, �and we don�t.� City still thrives with room to grow City leaders bristle at the phrase �one-horse town,� but Chris Schmid remembers. When he emigrated from Germany to Wooster to work for German-owned auto-parts maker LuK Inc. (pronounced �luke�) in 1982, community reaction �was like �LuK who? You only have 100 people,� � said Schmid, now interim director of the Wayne Economic Development Council. LuK now employs 750 in Wooster. Nowadays, though, Wooster counts successes not just in thousands or hundreds, but tens. That�s why high-tech map-maker Techni Graphics Systems Inc. and auto-parts maker Tekfor USA pop up so frequently in conversation. The companies, which locally employ 91 and 110, respectively, are touted as the type of businesses the city seeks: technology-driven, with well-paid workers and potential to grow. Techni Graphics creates �intelligent� electronic maps used by the Defense Department and industry. Soon it will trade leased space not far from Rubbermaid�s former headquarters on Ohio 585 for its own newly built facility in a fledgling technology park about three blocks away, where Wooster wants to lure similar businesses. Tekfor, which forges precision steel parts for carmakers, broke ground for its plant in 2000 on part of a 148-acre farm that the city bought for $1.3 million. The former farmland is among a swath � 500 acres in all � that the city and county hope will become a federal foreign trade zone, allowing manufacturers to save money when importing raw materials and exporting finished goods. The development council is working on the designation with help from the Northeast Ohio Trade and Economic Consortium, an eight-county economic development partnership of which the council recently became a member. �I think the city always wanted to do the right stuff,� Schmid said, �but now there is public excitement about doing the right things.� One year later, lives still adjust Now just shy of a year since losing his job at Rubbermaid, former lift operator Thomas took courses and became a real estate agent. Daytime hours and a cubicle beat second shift and a forklift. If only the pay matched Rubbermaid�s, where Thomas earned more than $13 an hour. That�s OK, Thomas said; it will in time. Not all his former colleagues fared as well. Some were forced to leave town to find work. Others, people with 20 or 30 years at the plant, struggled to adapt to new jobs �most paying far less than the wages earned with their Rubbermaid seniority. Still, Thomas is hopeful. The real estate market held up well, he said, despite Rubbermaid�s departure. His office recently listed a sprawling property once owned by a Rubbermaid exec. Asking price: $500,000. �I never wore clothes like this,� Thomas said of his chinos, loafers and dress shirt. Like Wooster itself, he found that change, sometimes, is good. To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: jcimperman@plaind, 216-999-4871 BOX Wooster Founded: 1817 Population: 25,322 (2003 estimate) Largest employer: LuK Inc., auto parts, 750 workers Challenge: Replacing tax revenue lost when Rubbermaid headquarters were relocated by owner Newell-Rubbermaid Inc. SOURCES: Wayne County Historical Society and Museum; U.S. Census Bureau; Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce; LuK Inc. © 2005 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 02:21:02 +0000