Editorial: CES jobs were a mirage

by Matt Marquardt –

The snake oil salesmen hit Mason City hard over the last few months, making promises of trash sorting jobs.  These A Teamers depicted a Shangri-La where human trash sorters gleefully pranced seven days a week into a $35 million garbage dump, mystically motivated to stick their hands into filth and nastiness most of them have only seen in movies.

Well, their dream was dashed by level-headed North Iowans who could see beyond the resume-building A Teamers; modern day carpetbaggers I would call many of them, whose real dream is of the next job they land in Ankeny or Johnston or some other suburb.

Here is my theory on why the CES jobs were a mirage.

Who in their right mind would sort trash?  Would you, reading this, accept a job sticking your hand into cat litter, food, refuse, hypodermic needles, chemicals?  I doubt it.  Only those people who had no other choice would.  CES would have found the workers to fill these jobs at places like BeJe Clark half way house.  After a few months of dealing with these troublesome types, CES would have had enough and moved to install mechanical sorting equipment, which by they way, they say they were not installing just to “support the community” and employ people.  Anyone who runs a business knows that the biggest cost is labor.  Why would supposedly savvy businessmen like Rod Flores and Joe Yavorski waste time and dollars on employing people to sort trash?  Would their investors approve of this?  Not likely.  I say it was all a short term mirage.  Add to this the fact that CES would only be getting about half the municipal solid waste it needed; our landfill could only supply 90-133 tons per day.  CES wanted 250 tons per day.  Did CES really need the number of trash sorters they claimed?  Again, not likely.

CES also made it clear that their plant was a “model” plant and that they did not expect or even think it would turn a profit; it was being built to show off to other investors, who would then buy rights to build their own plant.

Would this plant, with only about half the volume of waste it needs, with sketchy long-term motivation to employ trash sorters, and no clear determination to even turn a profit here, really employ anyone at all?  Would it need all the white collar engineers, etc, they claimed?  CES said they could run the plant with fewer than 20 employees.  Why would they say that if it’s not true?  Why would they employ more than they need?  And what about their statement of giving back to North Iowa by employing people they really don’t need as trash sorters?  Are we truly expected to believe that?  These people had no connection at all to North Iowa; they owe us nothing, why would they shoot themselves in the foot and make poor business decisions just to be nice?

At the end of the day, very few stood to gain from this garbage plant, and it was not the average Joe looking for a way to support his family.  That is why if you attended all the CES meetings at city hall and the landfill, you would mainly see architects, construction company owners, and resume-building carpetbaggers arguing in favor of this project.  They stood to gain just by the place being built and operational even for a very, very short time.  “Look, I brought 50 jobs to Mason City,” Brent Trout or Brent Willett could say at their next job interview.  Never mind that the jobs dried up in a few months.  Construction companies and architects stood to gain by getting the work; I can’t fault them for wanting that.  CES would pay no taxes for ten years.  No community benefit there.

If anyone reading this can intelligently argue that 50+ jobs at CES were here to stay if the project had passed, I invite you to leave your comments below and explain where I have it wrong.  Thanks for reading.