Racing from ’29 shadows

Shielded in the embrace of the Blue Ridge, Waynesboro has felt only the brush of cool economic breezes while elsewhere the winds of Depression, industrial collapse, housing downturns and recession have howled. That legacy and a distasteful irony weigh heavy as work creeps toward idle on the nylon line of the Invista plant on the South River.

In 1929, known to most of America as the year of the stock market crash and the start of the Depression, DuPont opened the factory now operated by Invista. The News Virginian began publishing the same year. People of age and long memories or those with relatives who match that description or who know sufficiently well this town’s history are mulling ’29 these days and fate’s strange twist.

As the flurry of activity at the DuPont plant infused life into Waynesboro at a time when other towns thirsted for sips of hope, now the city looks toward DuPont Boulevard with angst. Invista plans to more than halve its workforce, from 1,100 company and contract workers to roughly 500 by Feb. 8.

So now the city feels what it did not before, the chill of a coming economic winter. This, explains state economist Bill Mezger, is the requisite hazard for a community with a strong manufacturing base like Waynesboro’s. Layoffs tend to hit harder and deeper. But manufacturers, he said, also are more likely than many service companies to rebound when an economy awakens. “The good thing with manufacturing layoffs,” Mezger told The News Virginian, “is when the recession ends, the businesses start things up ... pretty quickly.”

Invista officials say they are holding out hope that new home construction will increase, driving a resurgent demand for carpet and the fibers produced at the Waynesboro plant. The question is how quickly those events might occur and how long the operation on the South River can endure if the recession is prolonged.

Whatever the case, city leaders ought to recognize that it is no longer 1929. This fact is not lost on the members of The News Virginian’s River City 2020 economic development panel, which met for the first time Wednesday at the newspaper’s offices on West Main Street. Part of the group’s task will be to identify strategies for expanding the city’s base so that Waynesboro’s fortunes no longer are hitched to a single large employer.

But two things far less tangible but perhaps of larger significance are required.

First, the gathering gloom needs to be chased from the city’s spirit. Waynesboro through the 80 years that have unfolded since Hoover reigned has been a place of remarkable resilience. But the city in recent years, by the accounts of many who have lived here for most or all of their days, has been affected by a longing for bygone days, when General Electric and DuPont powered the economy. We believe the city’s brightest days may yet wait. But that belief only can be substantiated by the city pushing relentlessly into the future rather than allowing the future simply to slip into the present. Part of Invista may be going idle, but the city cannot afford to do the same.

Second, city leaders need to be infused with a sense of urgency in pursuit of economic development. The economic times are shifting and so too are the city’s demographics. For decades, city leaders have watched as industry’s slow decline has nibbled away at Waynesboro’s average household income and the downtown core has decayed. Nothing ought to be considered of higher priority to our elected officials than building the city’s economy. Determining how to lure businesses here with a package of enticing tax breaks and snipped red tape ought to be the first order of council business. Identifying city staff to make these things happen ought to be the second.

The River City 2020 panel will do its part. Today, the group begins work on a white paper to be produced by this time next year outlining growth opportunities and strategies. In the meantime, join us in continuing to sound the call for the city’s leaders to rise from the shroud of council chambers and lead. The necessity of their so doing never has been greater.