The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 6

A6From Page A1 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Friday, December 3, 1993 TC Announcement Closing Village confronts loss of largest employer stuns plant employees -UINnNUED FROM PAGE Al company determined "thev couldn't be operated competitively -r t. Tne Cincinnati EnquirerPhaedra Singeiis "I didn't think they'd do it to us," said David Brewster, 50, of College Hill. The machine operator is raising two granddaughters. or James Mobley, a crew leader at the plant and former union president. He has been with the company 43 years.

"We didn't expect it to happen this quick," Mobley said. A stunned Charlene Carter, a 17-year employee from Hartwell, said: "We kept hoping they would be able to turn it around." Carter, 54, works in the laminating department and would like to find work with another paper mill. At 30, Doug Drews knows he is luckier than many of his co-workers. He has been with the plant five years and expects to find another pipefitting job. "I'm single," the Norwood resident said as he stood in front of his new black Probe GT.

"I might lose material things like this car. There's some people in there that have children and are up in the years." Mildred Barnett, a school-crossing guard who works a block from the plant, wonders where her son-in-law Larry Carrier will find another $17-an-hour job to support his wife and daughter. Carrier, a mill worker with the company 28 years, was out of town woes the result of reductions in inventory at GE Aircraft Engines will be compounded after the closing. The district will lose an estimated $130,000 in annual property taxes because of Smurfit's closing. That makes up about 10 of the district's $1.4 million general fund budget, said Linda Clevenger, district treasurer.

Voters recently approved a 7.9-mill operating levy to offset a $1 million deficit next year, and the district plans to borrow from its 1994 spending reserve. Although the levy will raise $1.5 million a year, proceeds will allow officials only to maintain current funding levels, she said. Lockland has lost several of its major industries in the past two decades, including a section of Celotex, a shingle manufacturer; Fox Paper and the bedding division of Stearns Foster. Village Administrator Greg Newcomer said the 1.2 square-mile village is trying to rebound by attracting small businesses. BY GINA GENTRY-FLETCHER The Cincinnati Enquirer LOCKLAND Village and school officials began to look for more ways to tighten spending Thursday after Jefferson Smurfit Corp.

announced that it will close its paper mill and carton plant next month. "It's devastating," Lockland schools Superintendent Nita Clayton said. "You feel you've plugged one hole, then here this comes along. It's going to be a big blow." Village officials Thursday tried -to determine how to make up the estimated $240,000 in earnings taxes that will be lost when its largest employer shuts down Jan. 30.

Council's finance committee will meet 4 p.m. today to brainstorm ideas for cuts, Councilman Ace Hamilton said. Charlene Case, village finance director, said the earnings tax losses make up "a little over 10" of the $2.26 million general fund budget. School officials lamented the closing. The district's financial au duuiuonai investment couldn be justified," Moore said.

The turn-of-the-century Lock-land facilities have had labor troubles including a four-month lockout of employees in 1990 triggered by what the company said was employee sabotage. Moore indicated the lockout did not affect the plant closing decision. "What it comes down to is, we couldn't justify putting in additional capital at this point," he said. Smurfit's timing three weeks before Christmas has frightened an already uncertain work force at a plant that employed several generations of the same families. "I didn't think they'd do it to us," said David Brewster, 50, a machine operator raising two granddaughters.

The College Hill resident has been with the company 25 years and says he is now forced to find another job or go into business for himself. Since the lockout, many employees feared the plant's future was limited, said Lincoln Heights May Keller said. "The main plants are almost gone. It's going to hurt. There's no doubt." When Stearns Foster closed its Lockland operation in September, 75 people lost their jobs.

The -Fox Paper Co. closed in 1988, and 100 employees lost their jobs. Em- ployment at Celotex has dropped from about 500 a decade ago to about 70 today. Jefferson Smurfit will have after the closings 18 carton plants and four boxboard mills in the United States, including a mill and carton plant in Middletown that will not be affected by the Lockland shutdown, Moore said. hunting and had not been told about the closing.

"It's hard to find a job making that now," Barnett, 63, said. "There's a lot of people that aren't old enough to retire right now." Wallace Keller, a 58-year-old-mechanic, said he will probably have to find another job for a few years. Work of his type is hard to find. "It means I've got to retire early and live on less," said Keller, -a 40-year employee from Lock-land. "It's going to be difficult." The closing will be hard for other Lockland residents.

"It's going to hurt Lockland," KKK: Group to appeal decision 5 groups want displays just a regular, single cross," he said. Several U.S. legal scholars recently polled by The Enquirer said the city should try another tactic. on square for holidays CONTINUED FROM PAGE Al land Boike said. Two other Ohio cities are grappling with the same predicament: In Columbus, the agency that manages the Statehouse will decide this week whether to let a Klan group display a cross.

Wilmington might be next. The Knight Riders plan to request a permit to display a cross in front of the Clinton County Courthouse, Tony Gamble, a member of the group who lives in Covington, said Thursday. Clinton County Commissioner Rick Stanforth said the county had not received the request but would get legal advice if it does. Several national legal experts have said Cincinnati is on shaky legal ground for denying the permit on the basis of "fighting words." ACLU attorneys agree. "The city has taken several trips to court over Fountain Square.

They have lost every time, and they would lose again," Cincinnati ACLU attorney Scott Greenwood said. Cincinnati's city manager has five days to have a hearing and then must rule on the appeal within three days. Greenwood asked Cincinnati to waive the administrative process, allowing the Klan to file suit immediately in district court. Robert Johnstone, deputy city solicitor, said a waiver is unlikely because it would skirt due process. Hamner decided the application could be denied under rules adopted in October that allow Cincinnati to ban displays that constitute "fighting words." Fighting words extreme insults likely to provoke a one-on-one confrontation and physical violence are not protected as free speech under the First Amendment.

Although drafted by the city solicitor's office as a way to prevent problematic displays, city officials maintain the rules are not directed at a single group. Not attack on KKK Hamner said his decision was not an indictment of the KKK: "It's the combination of the Klan and the cross which (taken together) symbolize and promote racism, and bigotry and hatred. "If the KKK came to me tomorrow with a request to put a Nativity scene on the square, I would probably approve it." Lee said Hamner's office asked him a week ago whether his group would reconsider with an application for some other type of display. He stuck by the cross, saying he did not understand how it could be rejected as "fighting words." "I don't see no flaming cross "It's just ridiculous. That (fighting-words argument) won't get" them anyplace," said Martin Re-dish, professor of constitutional law at Northwestern University law school in Chicago.

Cincinnati Councilman Todd Portune, chairman of council's Law and Public Safety Committee, is perhaps the most vocal proponent of using "fighting words" to bar a Klan cross. Contacted in Ypsilanti, late Thursday, Portune lauded Hamner's decision. "The way that a cross has been used (by the Klan) and the message it was used to communicate is indistinguishable" from the Klan's message of hatred, violence, prejudice and murder," Portune said. Even without a Ku Klux Klan cross, Fountain Square will be a busy forum for public displays. 1 Including the KKK application, five organizations have asked Cincinnati's Public Works for permits to place overnight displays on the square this month.

Recently approved city rules limit use of the square to no more -than three displays at any time. However, all applications could theoretically be approved because of varied display dates. The other groups include: Free Inquiry Group (FIG) Inc. wants to erect a free-standing wall "representing the wall of separation between church and state" between Dec. 15 and Dec.

24. Status: Because this was the most recently submitted request, Public Works has asked Free Inquiry to rework its display dates and avoid overlap with other groups. Chabad House of CincinnatiCongregation Lubavitch made its annual application to erect a menorah for the Jewish Chanukah Festival between Dec. 8 and Dec. 17.

Status: Approved Nov. 9. Christians for Keeping the Christ Child in Christmas sought to erect an 8-by-8-foot creche identical to one erected last year between Dec. 20 and Dec. 30.

Status: Approved Nov. 16. Cincinnati Concerned Citizens Association, a group espousing racial harmony, wanted to erect a cross Dec. 30 to Jan. 8, after any KKK cross is removed.

Status: Public Works has sent back the request, asking for a more complete engineer's drawing. Jeff Harrington I to target small towns, critic says BY STEVE KEMME cent death of a black man in Love- 1 1 1 1J J. SCHLOEMER SATURDAY DEC. 4TH ONLY The Cincinnati Enquirer land might have led the Knight Riders, a Klan-affiliated group based in Ross, Ohio, to target this suburb of 10,000, Webb said. Milton Metcalfe, a black Love' SOTE 5 IT WB 7:30 AM TO 2:30 PM AND 7:30 AM MORE! iana resident who said he was attacked by two white men who doused him with gasoline and set him on fire, died Sept.

26 with ON QUALITY FURNITURE, BEDDING AND AREA RUGS burns over 75 of his body. Rachel Pendergraft, spokes DOOR DUSTERS '6 ONLY QUEEN ANNE WiNG CHAIRS ORiCBJ 6 ONLY TRADITIONAL VELVET COVERED SWIVEL ROCKERS ORIG. 4 ONLY CONTEMPORARY SWIVEL TUB CHAIRS ORIG. 4 ONLY TRADITIONAL STYLE CLUB CHAIRS ORIG. 99 89 79 99 woman for a Klan group in Harri son, that purports to be the national organization, said the KKK has no national strategy to LOVELAND A Ku Klux Klan group's attempt to place a cross in a suburb such as Loveland does not surprise David Webb, who works for a national group that tracks and fights KKK activity.

Throughout the nation, white supremacist groups are trying to spread their message to small communities as well as big cities, he said. "They'll go anywhere they think they have the possibility of recruiting new members," said Webb, a researcher at Klanwatch, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. He cited three recent examples: KKK groups had rallies Oct. 23 in Shady Side, Sept. 25 in McKee, and Sept.

19 in Chie-fland, Fla. Locally, Klan rallies have been staged recently in Columbus and Wilmington, Ohio; and in Indianapolis. The controversy about the re target small communities, "It's up to individual (Klan) units what they she said Since 1990, the number of members of white supremacist groups has risen nationally from 22,000 to 25,000, Webb said. He attributes the increase mainly to tight economic times and a backlash to civil rights measures. 6 ONLY HEATER VIBRATOR RECLINER ORIG.

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