With the closing of the Wausau paper mill in Groveton expected at the end of the year, about 300 more jobs will be lost in the North Country.
State officials are looking at an unusual way to help out - moving state jobs north.
NHPR correspondent Chris Jensen has the story.
Coos County has been hit hard by the closing of paper manufacturing plants.
When the Groveton plant closes the county will have lost about 700 jobs and $32 million in wages since 2003.
What to do?
One possibility is to move some of the state’s estimated 10,000 jobs north.
That proposal came up late Monday during a meeting in Groveton between Coos residents and local, state and federal officials.
Senator John Gallus, of Berlin, says it makes perfect sense.
Gallus told the group he and Executive Councilor Ray Burton have been urging such a move for a long time.
“I think it is important for the state of NH to make that type of commitment. I would think we could find 100 jobs here or there to spread around the county.”
“We have to help ourselves, but it certainly would be important and a good statement from the state of New Hampshire if we were to drop some of those jobs in here.”
George Bald, the commissioner of the Department of Resources and Economic Development, told the conference Gov. John Lynch has asked him to investigate such a northward migration.
But Bald stressed it is way too soon for anybody to get excited.0
“There is a fair amount of work that is going into looking at different areas, specifically Coos County to see on that possibility. I don’t want to raise expectations or make false promises. All I can tell you is we are working on it. When something goes to pass then we will go into more detail.”
In an interview later Bald said moving jobs north requires looking at the roles of state agencies, how they do their work and the number of vacancies.
“I don’t at this point have any timetable and, again, there could be many complications. We just started looking into this but we recognize that there is a sense of urgency to getting it done and so we will work hard to do that.”
Sen. Gallus hopes it will work out.
He says the North Country needs a break for a change.
“Putting some state positions in here I think is relatively easy to do. I am not asking for 1,000 jobs. But if you put 100 jobs into Groveton and some jobs over in the Colebrook area and the Lancaster area on that side of the country and beef up some of the jobs in the Berlin-Gorham area you would cover this county pretty well.”
For NHPR News, this is Chris Jensen.
rather than moving the state government to the north country, which I'll admit is intriguing, why doesn't the state give incentives or preference to contractors that operate out of Coos County.The state awards millions of dollars of contracts every year, by giving the works to business in the North country, you'd be building a healthier economy.