After fire, our eyes will turn to leadership

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, July 11, 2001

The immediate concern after the Farmland fire in Albert Lea is short-term help for workers left out of a job.

Wednesday, July 11, 2001

The immediate concern after the Farmland fire in Albert Lea is short-term help for workers left out of a job. Unemployment benefits should help fill that void.

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But as we wait to find out how badly the plant is damaged and what Farmland’s plans will be in the long term, the focus shifts to ensuring that any lost jobs can be replaced and that the hole in our local economy, if there is one, is filled.

For it to happen, Albert Lea will need strong leadership from its city government, Port Authority, Chamber of Commerce and Greater Jobs, Inc. These are the organizations that deal in economic development and who have the people with the know-how to get a city through crises like this.

Without knowing whether Farmland will rebuild or renovate in Albert Lea, it’s hard to say just what kind of leadership will be needed. But it’s probably safe to say that even if Farmland will remain a presence in Albert Lea, it will not be operating at its pre-fire capacity for a while. At the very least, we will have a temporary problem; at worst, we will need to either replace several hundred jobs or find ourselves without hundreds of families who help support our city and schools, and of whom many have been important parts of our community for years.

Everyone’s eyes are keenly focused on what will happen at Farmland. Once we find out, our gaze will become fixed on the leaders who are charged with seeing our city and county through bad times.