Pike Industries has filed a lawsuit against Westbrook to stop the city from rezoning its Spring Street quarry and preventing the company from building an asphalt plant on the site.
The suit was filed just days after Pike was awarded a $35 million contract to rebuild the northbound lanes of Interstate 295 – a project it says will give work to up to 100 people in the area.
But Pike officials believe those blue-collar jobs the company is creating aren’t valued in Westbrook, as they say is evident by the city’s attempt to rezone land between Saco and Spring streets from industrial to light manufacturing. The Planning Board will start meeting in April to continue with the process of rezoning the land.
“All we want is to be treated fairly and not be subjected to discrimination,” said Jonathan Olson, Pike’s regional manager. “Not everyone in Westbrook can work as an engineer or work in high-tech.”
In order to preserve jobs and keep operating costs low, Pike says it needs to move its asphalt plant to the Spring Street quarry from its current location on Main Street, where the rock supply has been exhausted.
“If they wanted to take and continue to dig to China at (the Main Street) location, I wouldn’t have a problem with that,” said Mayor Bruce Chuluda.
He said it’s not the type of jobs he’s opposed to, but the location of the Spring Street site.
“We cherish all types of industries. This is a question of a vision the city’s had over a certain area of the city for a long period of time,” Chuluda said.
Dick Daigle, director of facilities management at Idexx Laboratories, a neighboring business that has opposed Pike’s expansion, has said that the veterinary product manufacturer moved into Westbrook because of the direction the company was told that area of the city was moving toward.
“All we’re doing is asking the city to fulfill that vision,” he said.
Olson said, however, that he believes the city needs to “look at the bigger picture” of how increasing its company’s operating costs will affect more than residents and businesses in one area of Westbrook.
He said if Pike’s expenses increase from having to haul aggregate from the quarry to the asphalt plant, it will cost more for taxpayers throughout southern Maine to fund paving projects, like the one on I-295.
Pike completed an identical project on the highway’s southbound lanes, from Brunswick to Gardiner, last year and was awarded a $2 million bonus from the state for finishing it 21 days ahead of schedule. He said he hopes the weather allows for the same efficiency in this year’s project, which he said will employ 50 to 100 people working for Pike, as well as a half of a dozen subcontractors.
In addition, he said, by building an asphalt plant on Spring Street, the company will be able to preserve the jobs of people currently employed at that site, as well as ones on Main Street and Bishop Street in Portland.
Chuluda said he values the jobs that Pike’s projects create.
“That’s our heritage,” Chuluda said about having blue-collar workers in Westbrook. “They’re a vital part of the economy.”
According to Daigle, 40 percent of Idexx’s own workforce is considered blue collar, which he defined as being paid an hourly wage.
“I think that everyone is supportive of adding jobs to the area,” Daigle said, regardless of what type of job they may be.
But the effort to rezone the land between Saco and Spring streets – what Olson said was “primarily designed to kick Pike out” -is under way.
“We feel the blue collar jobs we provide aren’t looked on as highly,” he said.
Pike filed a lawsuit against the city this week in superior court, fighting the rezoning effort. Meanwhile, the Planning Board will hold its first workshop on the rezoning on April 7.
“Perhaps there are some other cooperative measures,” Chuluda said, about some hope he has left that Pike can maintain and expand its operations on Spring Street without affecting its neighbors.
“It’s be nice if we could try to work together and figure that out absent a lawsuit,” he said.
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