Resolution calls on state to help Verso paper mill

The Marathon County Executive Committee on Thursday narrowly passed a resolution in support of having the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation award a $50 million loan to reopen the shuttered Verso paper mill in Wisconsin Rapids. The vote to approve was 5-4.

In debate, supervisors noted that Marathon County Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department sells 30 percent of its pulpwood harvested from 30,000 acres of managed forest to the Verso mill, while opponents said it was pointless for government to seek to prop up a disappearing Wisconsin paper mill business.

Under the proposal, money from the American Rescue Act would help a newly formed Consolidated Cooperative get a loan from the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands to buy the Wisconsin Rapids mill. The Wisconsin County Forest Association supports the plan.

Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department director Jaimie Polley said the county, to date, has been able to ship its wood harvest, but that as state paper mills close, the market for wood gets flooded and prices fall.

She said that current sales at the Wisconsin Rapids mill represented a major percentage of county timber sales.

“That’s a very, very large revenue for us,” she said.

County board chairman Kurt Gibbs, town of Cassel, said he feared that a bailout of the Verso mill would repeat what happened with the Park Falls paper mill. This mill, he said, was reopened with a large expenditure of public dollars, but recently closed. He noted that the Neenah paper mill closed June 1, ending 300 jobs.

Gibbs said the Wisconsin paper industry faced multiple challenges, including trade policy. “I don’t see how the business model for the paper industry can continue,” he said.

Supervisor John Robinson, Wausau, said the paper industry faced decreased demand, would continue to shrink and that government support would not, in the long-run, pay off. “The writing is on the wall,” he said. “I can’t support this at this time.”

Supervisor Jacob Langenhahn said support for the Verso mill was not among the top priorities in what Marathon County was looking for from state government. He said he could not support the resolution because the county needed to be “highly selective” in what it asked state officials for.

Those in favor of the resolution said they acknowledged the problems faced by the Wisconsin paper industry, but they needed to do what they can to protect local timber industry jobs.

“The plant in Wisconsin Rapids means a lot to Marathon County and the Northwoods,” said supervisor Tim Buttke, town of Stettin. “Loggers use the mills. That’s jobs in our area.”

In other news, committee members referred to the Rules Review Committee a debate over crafting a policy over board educational speakers. A request for this review followed recent speaker Kevin McGary’s allegation that Mayor of Wausau Katie Rosenberg was guilty of black genocide.