In nudging the idea of Albert Lea seeking an auto manufacturer to build a plant in our city, we thought movers and shakers would benefit from reading the following editorial from the Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, Ind. Honda plans to build a new plant in Greensburg, Ind., and make Civics. The plant will employ more than 2,000 workers and officials said it could expand to up to 4,000 workers.

The editorial ran July 12:

On top of the good news Hoosiers received when Honda announced it will build a new $550 million auto assembly plant in Indiana was the pledge from Honda executives that they intend to keep Greensburg green.

Not only is the new manufacturing plant expected to bring more than 2,000 jobs, but company leaders also say the goal is for the plant to become a &8220;zero waste to landfill&8221; manufacturing plant.

Each of the jobs will pay about $24 an hour, and Honda officials say the Greensburg plant will have an annual effect of $1.5 billion on Indiana’s economy.

If the company follows through on this pledge, and there is good reason to think it will given that Honda is already a leader in manufacturing environmentally friendlier cars, it will set a new standard for manufacturing.

How better can we put it? Honda plans to treat Greensburg a lot better than Wilson & Co. and subsquent owners of that packing plant ever

treated the Albert Lea environment.

We think Albert Lea should work aggressively to get on the short list of great places in Minnesota to build automobiles.