North Star Foods won't rebuild in St. Charles

Winona Daily News
By Winona Daily News Staff

North Star Foods announced Friday it will not rebuild its meat processing plant in St. Charles, Minn.

The plant was one of the town's largest employers when it burned in April, prompting a city-wide evacuation and leaving more than 200 out of work.

The announcement came as disappointing news to residents and city officials, who have held out hope.

"It's a huge impact for our community," Mayor Bill Spitzer said. "I'm disappointed. I think you always want what's best for your community. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. In this case, it didn't."

North Star's owners said they're merging with Bolingbrook, Ill.- based Quantum Foods, one of the world's largest food processors. Together, the companies may open a research facility in or near St. Charles,

but the center would likely employ fewer workers than North Star's previous processing plant, said Kenneth Trantowski, a spokesman for the companies.

North Star has maintained a skeleton staff in St. Charles, but it is unclear what will happen to those employees. And without an economic anchor like a North Star plant, St. Charles faces a shaky future.

"In a community our size, we don't have a major business that can suck up those 200 jobs," Spitzer said.

The city raised taxes and utility fees to make up for the tax revenue lost when the processing plant closed. North Star was St. Charles' largest electricity consumer at the time of the fire, accounting for about a quarter of the town's electricity usage.

Dozens of North Star employees, many of them Mexican immigrants, left St. Charles after the fire, said Francis Passe, administrator for the Southeast Minnesota Rural Education Resource Center, which aided most of the unemployed workers. Others stayed, continuing to search for work.

"I had one lady tell me, if I go back to Mexico, I'm going to leave my children here. They're better off," Passe said.

The recession has only compounded the problem.

"We tried to find work for them if we can," Passe said. "But there's no jobs out there."

Resource center staff has urged the immigrants to take English as a second language classes to make themselves more marketable.

Meanwhile, the resource center is serving about 100 more people with its food shelf than this time last year, with much of that gain related to the North Star employees.

The town's other merchants are now likely to suffer, too, officials said, with fewer potential customers.

City officials had met weekly with North Star representatives in the months after after the fire to discuss the possibility of rebuilding.

A potential bright spot: Almost $400,000 set aside by the Legislature for St. Charles schools may go to the city under a proposal by Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Wabasha. Drazkowski worked with Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, to obtain the money, anticipating the schools would suffer if many students left town after the blaze.

But since enrollment hasn't changed much, Drazkowski says he'll introduce a bill this year to give the remaining money to the city to help offset its tax revenue losses.

"All of our hearts go out to the employees of North Star Foods," Drazkowski said. "It's unfortunate that we are not going to be able to retain them."

Mayor Spitzer plans to meet at 4 p.m., today with North Star officials.

"St. Charles is a strong community," Spitzer said. "It's something that will take awhile to mend, but we're going to come together."

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