Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Oklahoma newspapers:
Enid News & Eagle. April 28, 2017.
With protein consumption growing worldwide, America’s biggest meat producer recently announced plans to buy AdvancePierre Foods.
Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson Foods Inc. plans to purchase Cincinnati-based AdvancePierre, which has 1,400 employees and substantial production operations in Enid. A “definitive merger agreement” with Tyson will see a subsidiary of the company offering to acquire all of AdvancePierre’s outstanding common shares for $40.25 per share in cash.
Advance Foods and Advance Brands, based in Enid, merged with Pierre Foods of Cincinnati in September 2010. Then AdvancePierre Foods acquired Barber Foods, a Portland, Maine-based food production company in May 2011.
Growth of the company accelerated in 2015 with acquisition of sandwich manufacturers Landshire Inc., of Caseyville, Illinois, and Better Bakery LLC of Valencia, California. AdvancePierre Foods grew again last October with acquisition of Vineland, New Jersey-based Allied Specialty Foods Inc., a producer of raw and cooked “Philly” sandwich meats.
All three of Enid’s AdvancePierre components fill different but complementary roles.
AdvancePierre’s Willow plant, which produces raw sandwich meat, has capacity for another 70 million pounds per year and currently is producing about 60 million pounds per year.
Meanwhile, in the last three years production has increased about 35 percent at the Enterprise plant (known as “The Beast”), which lies east of the Willow plant, at the intersection of 54th and Willow. Generating about 140 million pounds of food per year, it’s designed for high-speed, high-volume production of fully-cooked meat products such as chicken nuggets and hamburger patties.
Both plants feed directly into the distribution center, which ships product from the Enid plants throughout the country.
Interestingly, the day before announcing the AdvancePierre acquisition, Tyson said it was exploring the sale of three non-protein businesses: the Sara Lee Frozen Bakery business, the Kettle business and Van’s Company.
One day later, Tyson President and CEO Tom Hayes said the addition of AdvancePierre aligns with the company’s strategic intent to sustainably “feed the world with the fastest growing portfolio of protein-packed brands.” Marrying the two businesses should create meaningful opportunities for growth.
George Chappelle, AdvancePierre Foods chief operating officer who once worked with Hayes at Sara Lee, said in February that the complexity of operations makes the Enid facilities integral.
In a transaction conference call, Hayes said AdvancePierre has a portfolio of products and categories that Tyson does not. Tyson brands include Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Wright, Aidells and State Fair.
We hope Tyson is the right home for AdvancePierre to continue to expand its distribution footprint and nurture greater brand loyalty. AdvancePierre is known for producing center-of-the-plate food items that align well with Tyson’s protein-packed strategy.
Enid Regional Development Alliance Executive Director Brent Kisling said the merger puts our community in the middle of the international supply chain. As cost synergies are defined, we believe Tyson will find Enid production operations a vital asset in the evolving food-processing industry.
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Tulsa World. April 29, 2017.
A monument to 10 fundamental principles for our nation is expected to be placed on the Capitol grounds soon. No, not that monument and not those 10 things!
This one will display the Bill of Rights, and what could be more constitutional than that?
In late April, the Capitol Preservation Commission began the process of getting the monument made and placed on the east side of the Capitol. Senate Bill 14, the Bill of Rights Monument Display Act, was signed into law last session and the commission was charged with arranging for the monument’s placement and finding private funding to pay for it. The commission also will choose the design of the monument.
Supporters of the monument, expected to cost between $750,000 and $800,000, say they hope to have it up by 2018.
The Bill of Rights monument isn’t likely to run into the same trouble as the Ten Commandments monument, which was placed on the Capitol grounds and ordered removed by the state Supreme Court because it violated the state Constitution. The Ten Commandments monument, also paid for with private funds, now sits on private land near the Capitol. An attempt was made to repeal a portion of the state Constitution that prohibited the Ten Commandments placement. It was on the ballot Nov. 6 but was soundly defeated.
The Bill of Rights is clearly not religious in nature, and we hope this monument won’t spark any legal challenges. The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution are basically a list of limits on government power. They are the foundation upon which the country was built and largely what made the U.S. the model of liberty for the world.
The Bill of Rights is historic, and deserves a spot on our state Capitol’s grounds. We hope that the needed money can be raised quickly and that this monument to the ideals of this country can soon stand to remind Oklahomans of its importance.
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The Oklahoman. April 30, 2017.
A performance audit of Oklahoma’s prison system, conducted in 2007 at lawmakers’ request and at a cost to taxpayers of more than $800,000, makes for interesting reading a decade later as the number of people in Department of Corrections custody soars.
After reviewing data from the DOC, the Criminal Justice Resource Center and the state’s mental health agency, and reviewing hundreds of documents made available to their team, auditors said the offender population - those in prison, on parole or on probation - were all expected to grow, short term and long term.
The increase in the prison population, auditors said, was being driven largely by longer lengths of stay. Primary drivers of those included laws requiring inmates to serve 85 percent of their sentence before being considered for parole, a low rate of paroles being granted, and the governor’s involvement in the review of all parole recommendations.
“Changes to the above policies would have a significant impact on the future size of the prison population - would likely flatten or decrease the projected population,” the report said.
The most significant change in policy since then has been to remove the governor from parole recommendations involving nonviolent offenders, an idea voters approved in 2012. But lawmakers generally have looked to add crimes to the 85 percent list, and have been cool to other reforms.
We’ve seen evidence of that during this session as members have approved amendments to weaken some of the bills produced by a governor’s task force on criminal justice reform. Two years ago, members rejected a bill that would have let those serving time for 85 percent crimes to accrue good-behavior credits immediately upon entering prison, instead of having to wait until they have served at least 85 percent of the sentence. The bill was demonized as “soft on crime” and mischaracterized as an early release vehicle for violent offenders.
And so . the prison population continues to climb. DOC Director Joe Allbaugh says his agency’s census has reached a record 62,000. This includes 26,380 (as of April 25) incarcerated in prisons or halfway houses, placing prisons at 109 percent of capacity. There are 33,865 men and women on probation/parole, under community supervision or under GPS monitoring, and 1,755 state inmates being held in county jails.
In December, the DOC had reached a record population of 61,000. “It has taken just four months for an additional 1,000 people to be included in our numbers of incarcerated, supervised and county jail backup,” Allbaugh said.
In 2007, auditors noted that, “Operational staffing is generally at bare bones levels.” Allbaugh says he has 1,803 correctional officers - a staffing level of about 70 percent - and probation officers are averaging 130 cases each.
Some at the Capitol may dismiss as political maneuvering Allbaugh’s comment that in the short term, all he can do is “hope and pray” the Legislature provides funding for more prison beds. But the numbers make it clear: If lawmakers want to reject policies to curb Oklahoma’s prison population growth, then they have to pay for the outcomes of those decisions.
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