More on 'LA Times Plant' Closure

By: Jim Rosenberg The approximately 110 jobs to be eliminated as a result of next year's closure of the Los Angeles Times' Valley plant in Chatsworth will be from among the newspapers' three production facilities.

With the separation package made available to all, "our goal is to make it as fair as possible for all operations employees," said spokesman David Garcia, adding that some personnel now working in Chatsworth are expected to transfer to the downtown Olympic plant and the Orange County plant, in Costa Mesa.

In its Monday announcement, the Times said it will close the 22-year-old valley plant and transfer all production to its two newer print sites, while keeping the paper's San Fernando Valley and Ventura County editions.

Calls to Senior Vice President, Operations, Mark H. Kurtich were directed to the office of Communications Vice President Martha Goldstein, which could not say at this point say how the production transfer will affect staffing levels and press scheduling at the newer plants.

Nothing will change at another facility mentioned by the Times -- its large Sunday inserting plant in Irwindale (with its own smaller Goss and Muller Martini presses), according to Garcia. "Its role will not change," he said. "Neither the staff nor the operations will be affected" when the Valley plant closes in spring.

The fate of production equipment idled when the quarter-million-square-foot plant on 26 acres is ready to be sold next year is under consideration. "We expect that some equipment will be repurposed in our remaining plants, some may be repurposed at other Tribune newspapers and some may be disposed of through sale," Garcia said.

Through February of this year, the Times installed 10 MAN Roland Colorman towers, one for each Goss Colorliner press in the Olympic and Orange County plants, and reconfigured three of the Valley Plant's five Goss Metroliners and added full Colorliner towers created by stacking A-B units on other A-B units. The plant's remaining two presses were expanded with two Colorliner towers taken from a dismantled 16th press (E&P online, Dec. 26, 2003).

Completed under MAN and Masthead International, the expansion -- along with inker and controls upgrades --increased the Times' six-section, 96-page full-color capacity from 24 to 32 pages.