1-22 news: John Morrell employees, Sioux City dealing with plant closure
“We will get through this,” said Paul Eckert, city manager, in a press conference. City officials said that they had been in talks with Smithfield about a plan to relocate and expand the facility, which would have been approximately a $200 million project. The city had offered $47 million in incentives for the deal, which was almost agreed upon in 2008.
"That includes tax credits, that's a lot of state assistance as well as local assistance, tax increment financing, a number of different types of incentives based on jobs. They were at that time going to add jobs. We were literally within a few weeks of an announcement of that plant reconstruction when they pulled the plug on that," said Marty Dougherty, Sioux City economic development director.