Barbour: Plant on hold as company seeks financing

State News

December 5, 2009

Anonymous Picayune Item Sat Dec 05, 2009, 10:23 PM CST

JACKSON — A manufacturing company that wants to build a $300 million plant in the job-hungry Mississippi Delta is still trying to arrange private financing, so plans for a special legislative session for the project are on hold, Gov. Haley Barbour said.

“We’re in touch with them every couple of days and with the people who are financing them,” Barbour said at a news conference Thursday. “We don’t consider anything about it to be fatal to the project. But it does all have to be worked out.”

Barbour had said in late October that he would call lawmakers to the Capitol to consider state incentives for a “very sophisticated, advanced manufacturing” operation.

The governor and state economic officials have not publicly named the company, in keeping with their practice of withholding information about projects until a firm is ready for an announcement.

Lawmakers have said they expect it to be a German company that makes stainless steel pipes for oil and gas production, and that the factory would be built in Tunica County, south of Memphis, Tenn.

Legislators begin their 2010 regular session in early January, and Barbour said he doesn’t anticipate calling a special session before then unless private financing for the plant is resolved. A special session usually costs at least $30,000 a day.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, said in October that the state is being asked to spend less than $30 million on incentives. He said the state would get the money back if the company doesn’t meet its obligations, including creating 500 jobs in five years.

In October, the most recent month for which statistics are available, Mississippi unemployment was at 9.5 percent, matching the national rate. Tunica County’s unemployment rate was 12.9 percent.

Lyn Arnold, president and CEO of the Tunica County Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Foundation, said Friday that she hopes the company can work out its private financing.

“It would have a great impact on this county,” Arnold said. “This is a very good company and they’re going to create a large number of jobs.”

Barbour said in October that state officials had been courting the company for several months. He said the deal between the state and the company was completed during his a 13-day business trip to Asia in late September and early October.

The Delta has long been one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest states in the nation. Tunica County’s economy relies largely on agriculture and on a row of casinos along the Mississippi River.

Barbour has also been emphasizing job creation to help pull Mississippi out of recession and to boost revenues in a state where tax collections have fallen short of expectations for 15 consecutive months.

Text Only

State News

Miss. high court hears arguments over pardons Feuding attorneys asked the Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday to determine the validity of pardons that Haley Barbour gave to convicted killers and other convicts during his final days as governor. Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. said the court would not rule Thursday, but he didn’t say when a decision would come.
February 10, 2012
Senate votes to merge 3 Sunflower school districts The Mississippi Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would merge Sunflower County’s three school districts into one, easing into the politically sensitive topic of consolidation by focusing on a single area in the impoverished Delta.
February 9, 2012
Kansas, Missouri fight to keep Marine data center
Kansas and Missouri officials are working together to fend off New Orleans’ effort to lure a Marine Corps data center and its 400 high-paying jobs away from Kansas City.
The congressional delegations and governors from both states have written to Marine Corps Commandant James F. Amos, arguing to keep the center where it is.

February 8, 2012
Judge temporarily blocks Mississippi execution
A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the execution of a Mississippi inmate who killed two men during a robbery spree in 1995. The man’s attorneys asked for the order, not arguing guilt or innocence, but that corrections officials prevented Edwin Hart Turner from getting medical tests that could prove he is mentally ill.

February 7, 2012
New rules, tests proposed for public aid in Miss.
People who receive public assistance would be subject to random testing for drugs or nicotine and would have to perform community service under new requirements being considered by Mississippi lawmakers.

February 4, 2012
Home strengthening may lower insurance
Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said he is working with legislators on a bill that would require insurers to offer discounts to homeowners who have strengthened homes against wind damage.
State officials told the Sun Herald that they hope the reinforcement of roofing, doors, windows and other components also will qualify homeowners for insurance discounts, although there are no guarantees.

February 4, 2012
Inmate asks courts to stop execution
Condemned inmate Edwin Hart Turner’s lawyer told a federal judge Friday that a corrections policy prevented Turner from getting tests that could prove he’s mentally ill and ineligible for execution.

February 4, 2012
Pardoned killer to fight return to Mississippi
A convicted murderer who left Mississippi after being pardoned by former Gov. Haley Barbour seems poised to fight attempts to force him to return from Wyoming. Joseph Ozment’s attorney, Robert Moxley, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he will defend Ozment’s freedom if he decides to try to stay in Wyoming.

February 3, 2012
Universities say financial aid fund running short
Recipients of state scholarships could see their aid packages trimmed unless the Mississippi Legislature puts more money into financial aid. That includes the more than 20,000 students who receive the Mississippi Tuition Assistance Grant.

February 3, 2012
Bad info infuriated kin of pardoned man’s victims
In another twist in the often confusing aftermath of pardons granted by former Gov. Haley Barbour on his way out of office, Mississippi corrections officials said Tuesday that victims’ relatives were given bad information by the state that fanned their outrage.

February 2, 2012
More State News Headlines

State News

Search Results

Barbour: Plant on hold as company seeks financing

Site Map

Contact Us