Council extends job incentives to plastics company
The city council on Tuesday approved up to $80,000 in economic development incentives for a plastics company that plans to expand its operations in Oklahoma City.
McClarin Plastics intends to add 58 new jobs in Oklahoma City within five years, according to a memo to the council from City Manager Jim Couch.
McClarin, of Hanover, Pa., specializes in design and manufacturing of highly engineered, molded plastic assemblies, according to its website.
It has interests in transportation, construction, renewable energy, medicine, agriculture and railroads. Prominent in images on its website are wind turbines.
Couch's memo says McClarin has manufacturing facilities in Washington state and Alabama.
Its Oklahoma City plant is to serve markets in the southwestern and central United States.
The project's estimated economic impact of $24.7 million over the first four years includes capital investment, wages, and state and local taxes.
Newly created jobs are expected to pay an average of $34,760 in the first year.
Couch said the company's latest expansion is part of a pattern of continual growth, and that there is "strong potential" for additional expansion.
Approval sets in motion negotiations on an economic development agreement. Incentives will be paid from a fund established by voters in 2007.
Festival nixed
The council denied a permit sought by organizers to hold the inaugural Paseo Music Festival in Uptown the same weekend as the nearby Paseo Arts Festival.
About five blocks would have separated the festivals. Ward 2 Councilman Ed Shadid said he was worried about public safety and the impact on residents.
Music festival organizers sought a permit to close N Dewey Avenue just north of NW 23 Street.
Shadid said he had heard concerns "for years" about the Arts Festival's effect on the neighborhood, as thousands congregate for the holiday weekend event.
Access becomes difficult and residents must move south from the Paseo, centered around NW 29, to "escape" their neighborhood, he said.
Shadid said adding a second festival would "sandwich" those residents, many of them elderly, between two events for three days over the Memorial Day weekend.