It's been the talk of the town for a couple of months -- a big food processing plant is being planned for the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park.
The plant has been described as "O-AT-KA-sized" and could employ from 200 to 300 people.
Sources tell The Batavian it's now pretty much a done deal and more information should be coming out soon.
This is the second big-win for the GCEDC's agri-business park off of Route 5 in the Town of Batavia.
Last month, Colombia-based Alpina Products broke ground on a yogurt processing plant that will start out employing 50 people.
There's an item on the Town of Batavia's Planning Board agenda tonight that deals with further subdivision of the agri-park. We may find out more at this meeting.
It's great that a new company
It's great that a new company is coming to Genesee County...but why is the GCEDC recruiting agribusinesses while at the same time seeking to change the county's and Alabama's comprehensive growth plans to create a 1,340 acre industrial park which will strangle agriculture and its supporting businesses? I have been to almost all of their presentations and public information meetings so I know that this is true.
The Draft Generic Environmental Impact Study prepared by the GCEDC includes a section that strongly recommends that Alabama adopt agricultural protection strategies immediately after it changes its zoning to allow this conversion of farmland to an industrial park. The consultants hired by the town of Alabama to review the D-GEIS concluded that these protections would be very necessary-as well as very expensive-and that the character of the town and its economy would be very much changed if the comprehensive plan and zoning laws are rewritten to allow the industrialization of Alabama.
Has the GCEDC been up-front with these agribusinesses it is recruiting to the Genesee Valley Agri-business Park about its involvement in promotions that the experts all say will kill off agriculture in Genesee County? If we are no longer growing food in Genesee County, what will happen to the "big food-processing plant" that the GCEDC is persuading to come here? Will county residents be reimbursed for all of the taxes these new businesses are allowed to avoid?
Is anyone in the media or better yet, the government, paying attention to what the GCEDC is doing? Have any of those folks read the documents carefully? (I know they are not attending the meetings!)