Republican city council members say city should learn from loss of Quebecor

By MATT OLBERDING/Lincoln Journal Star

The three Republicans on the Lincoln City Council said Thursday they hope the city learns from the experience of losing 550 jobs at a Quebecor printing and binding plant and will be more proactive in the future.

Acknowledging that there is likely nothing the city can do to make Quebecor reconsider its decision to close the plant, Ken Svoboda, Robin Eschliman and Jon Camp said Lincoln needs to make sure such a situation never happens again.

“We need to assume that almost every job could potentially leave Lincoln,” Camp said.

Emphasizing that they were not placing any blame, the three hinted the mayor’s office and the Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development should have been aware that Quebecor was considering closing the plant.

Mayor Coleen Seng said she found out through a voicemail message Wednesday that the company was leaving town, the same day Quebecor announced its intentions to close the plant by the end of April.

The Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development is the coalition of the Chamber of Commerce, private business partners and local government. Operated by the chamber, LPED is supposed to improve Lincoln’s economy and add investment and employment.

LPED officials said they had been working with the company for the past year and were given no indication Quebecor World planned to close the Lincoln plant.

Eschliman said the city and/or the Chamber of Commerce need to have a system employees know they can call and anonymously report any “telltale signs” that their employer might be considering cutting jobs or closing.

Eschliman also proposed creating a panel of neighborhood leaders, union officials and the business community to examine the effects of globalization on Lincoln.

She said such a panel should look at how other similar-sized cities have dealt with global companies cutting jobs and closing local facilities and learn from any successes they have had in keeping jobs that were at risk.

Ken Svoboda, who is running for mayor, mentioned that Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey constantly visits companies that have a major presence in that city, and that the next Lincoln mayor should consider doing the same.

Svoboda said that bringing new companies to town, like Verizon, is great, but it’s as important, if not more so, to concentrate on figuring out “how we’re going to keep the jobs that we currently have here.” Verizon announced recently it will open a call center in Lincoln with more than 800 jobs.

Chris Beutler, who is also running for mayor, said he’s glad to see the three council members proposing a panel similar to the economic policy council he proposed a couple of weeks ago, but he said it’s a little late.

“They are trying to put the cat back in the bag,” he said. “The time to set economic policy isn’t after the city government has let another 500 jobs leave town. We should set the economic policy that attracts and maintains employment up front.”

Reach Matt Olberding at 473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com.