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Midland: A steel town fighting to survive

By JOHN O'BRIEN

MIDLAND, Pa. -- Midland Borough Council members are pondering a forced public takeover of the Crucible specialty steel mill - scheduled to close for good Oct. 15 -- in an effort to save the Ohio River steel town.

'There are wiser men than me trying to work this thing out, but we have to do something just to survive,' steelworker Charles Simmons of Midland said.

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Council President Willim Vinovich, a retired steelworker who toiled 45 years at the Crucible mill, said the borough, 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, grew up around the mill.

'The mill actually came first, a year or two before the borough was incorporated,' he said. 'It was called the Midland Steel Co. at first, then Crucible came in a couple years later.'

And many of the 4,300 residents of the Beaver County borough, 700 of whom are laid-off workers at the mill, are wondering: Can the money be raised and will the courts okay an unprecedented public takeover of a steel mill? Will the borough, already with a $250,000 budget deficit that has prompted municipal layoffs, survive without the $1.6 million annual tax revenue the mill brings into the borough and Midland public schools?

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Colt Industries, Crucible's parent firm, said last week it will close the mill for good Oct. 15. Only 200 people still are working while up to 4,700 have labored at its continuous casters. Colt killed a deal to sell the mill to Cyclops Corp. at the last minute, although Colt says a sale still is possible.

Proponents of the public takeover, allowed under eminent domain provisions of the state Municipality Authority Act, say necessary money could come from a buyer, government funds, loans or tax-free bonds.

Midland Chamber of Commerce president Peggy Buckley, who runs a clothing store, said of the eminent domain idea, 'It's a step in the right direction. We have to stand up and fight because nobody is going to do it for us.'

The Rev. Joseph Feltz, a Roman Catholic priest who called the people of Midland anxious and depressed, said, 'If people won't get their hands dirty and support something like this, there's very little hope left.'

On a Midland sidewalk, Teri Jackson of nearby East Liverpool, Ohio, said, 'Midland has no choice. They have to try. Crucible is the town's tax base and this may be the only choice they have left.'

Both Vinovich and Mayor Martin Schulte predicted the plant will run again.

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'Somebody's going to buy it,' added Vinovich. 'They put $100 million in the last five years in there. If it needed a lot of renovation, I'd say no, or there's a slim possibility. But that is one of the best stainless steel mills in the country.'

The mayor said the slumping economy is the real villain.

'There just isn't the demand,' Schulte said. Steel mills are operating at about 42 percent of capacity. If we had even 60 or 70 percent, we wouldn't have these problems.'

Times are tough in Midland and neighbors are helping neighbors.

Schulte Friday helped move bags of donated apparel from a makeshift clothes bank for the unemployed into a van for delivery.

There is also a food bank and a job service program run by the United Steelworkers union and other community leaders for families of the unemployed.

Schulte was wearing a T-shirt bearing the words 'Midland's Diamond Jubilee.'

'We celebrated it this year,' he said. 'The town was incorporated when the mill came here 75 years ago.'

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