GARELICK BLASTED FOR CLOSING LYNN PLANT
Lynn Mayor Thomas M. McGee blasted Garelick Farms for its bombshell announcement to its approximately 300 employees that the dairy plant — the city’s seventh-largest employer — will be closing in October.
At a press conference yesterday, McGee told reporters he had learned of the announcement only through some of the plant’s workers and had yet to hear from the company itself.
“Like many of the people in this city, I’m shocked over this sudden announcement,” he said. “Garelick has had no communication with me or my office prior to this announcement that came out this morning. It places us, unfortunately, in a reactionary position.
“The city has reached out to Garelick to obtain more information and has not received a response yet,” he added. “Sadly, the only way we’re able to reach out to them is a 1-800 number to their office in Texas. I have had no response. ... This is disheartening, to say the least, that they would announce their decision in this way.”
Garelick Farms referred the Herald’s calls to its parent company, Dean Foods, which did not respond to requests for comment.
McGee said his office has contacted the Massachusetts Office of Business Development, and Department of Career Services rapid-response teams will, with Garelick’s permission, work with employees to assess their needs, inform them of their eligibility for benefits and provide career counseling and other help in their job searches before they get laid off.
The mayor said he did not know whether employees will be offered severance, and although there is another Garelick Farms plant in Franklin, “if you’re living here in Lynn, trying to get to Franklin even on a one-day basis, it’s not a reality that you’re going to move there.”
McGee encouraged Lynn residents with questions or concerns to contact his office at 781-5866850 and said information will be posted on the city’s website as it becomes available.
But the economic impact of the plant’s closing will reach beyond its workers, he said. Garelick Farms has been a major user of the city’s water since it purchased the plant from a creamery in 1998, the mayor said, “so there will be substantial loss of revenue to our Lynn water and sewer, as well as city taxes.”
All 28 of the city’s schools, which serve more than 16,000 students, also buy Garelick Farms milk, he said, and the facility is located on approximately a dozen acres on the city’s waterfront.
“We want to make sure that when production winds down,” McGee said, “we know what is going to happen at the plant and how they’re going to work with us to ensure that we repurpose that facility.”