Hello and thank you for taking time to read about some issues that are unfortunately becoming all too familiar in America. Those issues are the loss of jobs, loss of homes, loss of opportunities, and loss of hope. The loss of family wage jobs (and the middle class) is of particular concern because it directly contributes to the other three losses. It is absolutely affecting everything and everyone.
When I’ve read about other factories being shut down or shipped overseas, I’ve felt that the American dream is being exported with those jobs. Every family-wage job should be protected and when lost, we should feel shame and anger and sadness! Now I am facing that same possible fate, along with 851 other people who work at the Kimberly-Clark plant in Everett, which is for sale.
Our future is very uncertain. We might be bought out by another company that has a business strategy that is better suited to the Everett mill. Or we might not. The future is uncertain.
Hopefully, the mill will be bought, and the people who work there will continue to earn a family-wage living. We are 852 people who purchase groceries, work on our homes, subscribe to newspapers, and mow our lawns (sometimes in the rain). Quite a few of us hunt, fish, bowl, ski, and have children who go to local schools and will hopefully go to college someday. We are taxpayers.
If the mill isn’t bought, it will be closed. That would send shockwaves throughout Snohomish County. Those 852 jobs would be gone. The opportunity for thousands of future potential employees, possibly even your children or grandchildren, would vanish forever. We will add to the welfare burden. And Washington state will continue to become a welfare state. One lost battle after another.
I received an electrical apprenticeship here. Many other factory workers learned a trade here. This mill has given all of us in Snohomish County (through our taxes and interaction in the local economy) opportunities to pursue our American dreams. I owe a debt of thanks to the Everett mill. It has paid me with over 22 years of stability and a trade I can take anywhere. That mill neither owes me nor the community of Snohomish County anything — it paid us as time went on.
Some folks may think that “Milltown” doesn’t need the old factory on the waterfront. It’s noisy or stinky sometimes. It blocks the view. That the property might be better off as condominiums or trendy shops.
Who will live in the condos and shop in trendy stores when the middle class is gone? Will the folks who live nearby be able to afford the view when all the property values and taxes go up? Please think about these questions rationally and answer them with your head, not your heart.
The factory on the waterfront doesn’t need Everett and Snohomish County. It’s the other way around.
Steve Shimkus live in Stanwood.
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