After everyone had a chance to fill their plates and find a chair, Kathy Allen welcomed everyone and started the program.Senator Seliger was brought to the microphone again but this time he introduced a longtime friend of his, Mayor Bob Josserand of Hereford. SCDC had invited Mayor Josserand and Hereford Economic Development Director Don Cumpton, to come and talk about Panda Ethanol and the changes to their town. Sherman County Development wanted to give community residents an idea of what to expect during the next year; from the formal announcement to the actual groundbreaking. Hereford has just been through this maze of excitement and their growth has already skyrocketed! According to Mayor Josserand, there will be 400 extra construction workers in Hereford during the construction period and they don't know what they're going to do with them. They don't have enough motels, there are not enough mobile home parks and they have very few RV parks. The RV parks seem to be a high priority since many of the workers will bring their own travel trailer to live in during construction. The city has upgraded their infrastructure in order to handle the 30+ new homes being built by incoming plant employees. The company will hire locally for construction and for plant operation later on, but any that can not be hired locally will be brought in from other areas. Don Cumpton stated that this has been great to see the city and the county work together on this project. Expected date for the groundbreaking in Sherman County is 2nd quarter of 2007. |
phone: 806-366-2897 |
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