Future looking gloomy for closing Mitsubishi plant

Posted on October 23, 2015

By Dave Dahl/Illinois Radio Network

NORMAL – It will take more than luck to get an automaker to come to Normal and take Mitsubishi’s place. It will take public incentives.

That’s what Bob Reed, director of programming at the Chicago-based Better Government Association said. He has authored a piece for the group’s web site examining the upcoming closure of the auto plant, which came to central Illinois to great fanfare in the 1980’s.

“I think you have to have a reasonable approach” to incentives, said Reed, noting a task force that includes local leaders and representatives of state and federal government is in place to try to map a path forward for the plant and its soon-to-be-displaced workers. “Our concern is that they be open and transparent, and we know what the details are of any kind of deal that’s made, because, often, that is where you find out where the rubber meets the road.

“We have no position on incentives per se.”

Reed reported that of the auto plants which closed in the nation since 1979, more than half have remained closed.

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