Micron officials held a town hall Monday evening with Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon at Clay Town Hall.
McMahon said Clay is the only place in New York state with enough acreage, water, wastewater, gas and electric capable of supporting Micron.
“This doesn’t happen without White Pine, hard stop,” McMahon said. “Without the Green Chips legislation this doesn’t happen, hard stop. And without the federal legislation that allowed this to be competitive in the United States versus Asia and Europe this doesn’t happen, hard stop.”
The county executive said the Micron project is a catalyst for solving some of the challenges in the community today, like traffic.
“We’ve already identified enhancements that have to happen in our generic environmental review,” McMahon said. “The enhancements to 31 and 11 now are going to be made much quicker comprehensively to meet these challenges and these opportunities that we have. Quite frankly this probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for this project.”
April Arnzen, senior vice president and chief people officer at Micron, said the company is excited to engage with the surrounding community of Clay.
“This is a generational opportunity for everyone,” Arnzen said. “We are here to stay and this is exciting for people want to get a job in the next couple of years or in the next 20 years. Kids who aren’t even born yet might have the opportunity to work at Micron.”
Arnzen said the company is partnering with area colleges to hire locally for the expected 50,000 jobs coming with the investment.
"We've got this great opportunity to bring more people into the workforce," Arnzen said. "There are going to be roles for anyone who wants to be a part of this."
McMahon said Monday’s town hall is just the beginning of discussions with the community.
“We’re going to have these types of meetings in every part of the county,” McMahon said. “This being the greatest investment that any community has ever seen, everybody needs to feel a part of that or else we didn’t maximize what’s in front of us right? This is our Erie Canal moment for all of our generation to see this happen.”
Updates on future meetings and progress will be posted at micron.com/ny.
