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Volume 104 • Number 43 • Wednesday, March 5, 2014 • PO Box 188 • 111 E. Jenkins • Maryville, MO • 75¢
Officials tour CMC; auction set March 26 By TONY BROWN News Editor
County officials, auctioneers and at least one potential buyer toured the vacated Carbolytic Materials Company plant on the east edge of Maryville on Tuesday. Operations at the 24,000-square-foot manufacturing facility ground to a close seven months ago after four years of fires, intermittent shutdowns, an oil spill and mounting financial woes. Inside, the plant is a tangle of pipelines, tanks, valves and machinery, all coated with fine black dust — the residue of the scrap automotive tires the facility was designed to process. In one cavernous room, giant plastic bags stand on skids. The bags are still filled with raw carbon black, a pigment and reinforcing agent used in the manufacture of various plastics and the material the CMC plant was originally intended to produce. Josh McKim, executive director of Nodaway County Economic Development, and one of those who walked through the plant this week, said he is hopeful the facility will open again, preferably to fulfill its intended purpose of extracting marketable carbon black, fuel oil and gas from shredded automotive tires. But that’s almost certainly not
going to happen until someone comes along with enough cash to acquire CMC’s physical plant from a pair of financial houses that have seized both the building and the equipment it contains from the original investors, a group St. Louis businessmen headed by Ray Riek, who organized the startup after a 30-year career in product and process development with St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. After looking around the complex on Tuesday, McKim said it appeared the plant had “good bones,” and that finding an investor willing to stick with the manufacture of carbon black would be the “best case scenario.” Such an investor would benefit, McKim said, from the presence of a trained workforce — CMC’s former employees — who he believes would be able to get the plant back up and running with a minimum of delay. A second positive outcome, he said, would be a suitable offer from a company willing to acquire the building for some other industrial application. Just who might be interested in buying the factory and for what purpose could become clearer later this month when the structure and the five acres of ground it sits on will be sold at auction by Maas Companies Inc., an auction firm See CMC Page 5
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Recovery mission
County mapping technician Kevin Hartman and Collector/Treasurer Marilyn Jenkins examine an employee lounge at the vacated CMC plant near Maryville, the building and grounds of which are to be sold at auction later this month. The sale will not include equipment and fixtures inside the plant, on which the county claims it is owed $350,000 in back personal property taxes.
Bank robbery suspect nabbed
CITY OF MARYVILLE PHOTO
New ideas coming
Additional space for recreational vehicles is expected to be one of the issues addressed in a new longrange plan for Mozingo Lake Recreation Park commissioned this week by the Maryville City Council.
Main, Mozingo planning set By TONY BROWN News editor
As expected this week, the Maryville City Council approved entering into a contract with RDG Planning & Design of Omaha, Neb., who will act as a consultant in creating a new master plan for Mozingo Lake Recreation Park. According to City Manager Greg McDanel’s report to the council, which recommending accepting RDG’s bid, the plan will comprise an overall vision for further development at the 3,000-acre recreation
area, which serves as the city’s primary water supply. The plan is expected to govern initiatives related to the park and its 1,000-acre lake for the next 20 years. McDanel said the need for such a blueprint is set forth in the city’s existing comprehensive growth plan, which calls for, among other things, expansion of existing high-demand facilities at Mozingo, including rental cabins, campsites and recreational vehicle facilities. Other goals, McDanel said, embrace marketing Mozingo as a regional tourist destination, a goal
cherished by several council members, especially Mayor Jim Fall and Councilman Glenn Jonagan. Councilman Jeff Funston pointed out that the plan will replace a similar outline drafted in 1995 by the Northwest Missouri Regional Council of Governments. Funston said a number of elements from the earlier plan have been adopted, and that the time had come for a fresh look at how the park is to be used. “Things are a lot different now than they were 20 years ago,” Funston said.
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660-562-2424
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A suspect in the Nov. 13, 2013, bank robbery of the Bank Midwest branch at the corner of South Main and South Avenue in Maryville has been apprehended by federal agents, Maryville Public Safety Director Keith Wood said Tuesday. According to a release issued by Wood, Ronald David Brown Jr., 39, Kansas City, was in custody and awaiting indictment on charges related to three separate bank robberies, including the Maryville episode. He is also suspected of similar robberies in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Dec. 20, 2013, and Manhattan, Kan., on Nov. 27, 2013. The release stated that the FBI has been in close contact with Maryville authorities since Feb. 26 when the bureau developed information indicating that Brown was a suspect. The robbery in Maryville was the first bank heist committed in Nodaway County in 27 years. Authorities reported afterward that the unarmed male suspect reportedly got away with less than $2,000 after entering the small branch and demanding that an employee hand over cash. According to police, no weapons or notes were used in the holdup, which authorities described as a “verbal robbery.” The FBI was called in immediately to assist local authorities with the investigation, since bank robbery is a federal crime.
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Ronald David Brown Jr. “With any FDIC facility, the FBI is automatically involved,” Wood said at the time. “They actually responded that day as well and worked the initial case with us.” The suspect was described as a white male, approximately 40 years old, and between 5 feet, 10 inches and 6 feet tall with an average build and a short, dark beard and mustache. He fled the scene in a four-door white sedan driven by an apparent accomplice. The status of the accomplice was not immediately available. A credit union in Blue Springs was robbed Nov. 20, exactly a week after the robbery in Maryville, but the two incidents were apparently unrelated, authorities determined. The robbery was the first at a Nodaway County bank since 1986.
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