Sept 26, 2012 Belle Plaine Herald

Page 1

Cross Country Teams Run in Two Big Meets

Dakota Conflict Series Resumes Page 4

Football Tigers Overrun by Wolverines

Page 17

Page 17

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIRST YEAR

BELLE PLAINE, MINNESOTA, SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

75¢ SINGLE COPY

NUMBER 39

Cambria Opens Its Doors to Belle Plaine

Company Expects Plant Here Will Be Ready to Expand Within 2 Years

Cambria’s Chief Executive Officer Marty Davis apologized last Thursday (Sept. 20) for the silence surrounding his company’s operations in Belle Plaine since purchasing the community’s largest and most visible commercial building. Davis and his family opened the doors to Cambria’s headquarters, the former ExcelsiorHenderson motorcycle plant on East Enterprise Drive to about 60 business and civic leaders. The open house included tours as well as an update on the company’s operations and plans for the future. After purchasing the building for a reported $5.7 million four years ago, Cambria put an estimated $420,000 worth of improvements – removing interior walls to open up more space and adding mechanical systems to support production -- according to the city. The company funded the building and improvements itself. Davis staunchly opposes taxincrement financing. In Le Sueur, he declined accepting it The leaves are falling and pyramids are forming as Belle Plaine High School prepares to cel- but allowed the city to establish ebrate its 2012 Homecoming next week. This year’s king and queen candidates are bottom row, from left, Brandon Boateng, Kyle O’Brien, Jayden Howie and Nathan Phillips. In the next row are Zack Juaire, Jamie Read and Jessica Buszmann. Above them are Claire Otto and Haley Fogarty. At the summit is Sophie Brazil. Next Monday’s coronation at the school will start at 8 p.m. in the north gym. More on next week’s homecoming festivities will appear in next week’s Herald.

It’s That Time of Year

a TIF district and use the proceeds to fund public infrastructure. He also declined subsidies for job creation and equates public subsidies for business as “corporate welfare.” The building at 805 Enterprise Drive East is a valuable part of the local property tax base. With a market valuation for taxes of $6.2 million, it generates $29,901 in property taxes for Scott County, $64,280.24 for the city and $37,340 for the Belle Plaine School District. The company’s other two properties in Belle Plaine, at 815 Main Street E. and 835 Commerce Drive East, cumulatively generate just over $8,000 in property taxes for Scott County, $17,300 for the city and $10,090 for the school district. Despite efforts to publicize Cambria’s early operations in Belle Plaine as one of the community’s top employers, the Davis family maintained a low profile. It did so, Marty Davis said, to avoid speculating. The Davis family, he said, wanted to stabilize the operation in Belle Plaine and then tell the community what it had accomplished here rather than issue a press release on what it hoped to do. “We didn’t mean to offend anybody, but we wanted to wait until we had done something,” he said. “We thought we could

get in here and get something going.” The family sought the building in Belle Plaine because of its proximity to the Le Sueur plant and also for efficient shipping to customers on the East and West, the South, and Canada. Cambria sends up to 20,000 orders a month from Belle Plaine to customers. Cambria employs 172 people in Belle Plaine, all but 10 at the plant on Enterprise Drive on the south side of Highway 169. The other facilities warehouse products and handle samples sent out to distributors. The company’s overall payroll at its three facilities in Belle Plaine is approximately $7.6 million. Nearly all of the employees in Belle Plaine are full-time workers earning livable-wages -- ranging from $33,000 to $40,000 plus benefits. “Those are good men and women in Belle Plaine. They work their tails off,” he said. The 170,000-square-foot plant receives 5-by-10 foot natural quartz sheets from Cambria’s plant in Le Sueur. The company offers 102 designs. Working around the clock, seven days a week, the company’s 86 workers in the fabrication department take the quartz sheets and using an intricate system of comput-

Cambria

(continued on page 18)

Harvest Falling Into Place combine in a cornfield near the intersection of Highway 169 and County Road 3 last week. He said that particular field, which he is renting, was damaged by hail earlier this year, resulting in lower yields. Even smaller yields are coming from fields with lighter soils that were badly scorched by the extreme dryness and heat of July and August. Still, Minnesota corn and soybeans were not as damaged by the heat and dry weather as

Harvest

(continued on page 18)

Managers of Cambria’s plant in Belle Plaine include -- from left -- Brian Scoggin, vice president of operations; Gary Gilberto, plant superintendent; Mark Dubbels, logistics manager; and Arthur Hartman, vice president of partner services.

A combine operated by Randy Koll of Belle Plaine dumped corn into a grain cart last week in Belle Plaine. One of the earliest Minnesota harvests on record is taking shape as combines continue to cut their way through corn and soybean fields, including in Scott and surrounding counties. The unusually early start of the harvest (about three weeks ahead of normal) is due to the drought-like conditions that have persisted in fields for the past couple of months, enabling crops to dry out. Most of the crops in the state managed to reach maturity early due to the exceptionally warm spring that allowed planting to begin weeks ahead of schedule. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), approximately 30 percent of the state’s corn had been harvested as of Sunday, compared with a 2 percent average for this early in the

fall. With more dry weather in the forecast for the rest of this week, that number is expected to climb considerably. Corn conditions are rated 55 percent good to excellent in the state. The USDA also reports that Minnesota producers have harvested 45 percent of the soybean crop as of Sunday, well ahead of the five-year average of 5 percent. Soybean conditions are rated 60 percent good to excellent. According to Belle Plaine farmer Randy Koll, local corn and soybean growers are realizing what they’ve expected for many weeks – varied yields. “We’re taking what we can get,” said Koll from on his Cambria CEO Marty Davis welcomed Belle Plaine civic and Enterprise Drive Thursday afternoon and offered a hint of business leaders to the company’s Belle Plaine facility on East the company’s plans for the plant.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.