DELPHI Letter seeks support for application

An additional 135 acres also would be within the foreign trade zone.
WARREN -- Trumbull County is sending a letter to a federal agency urging support for Delphi Automotive Systems LLC's foreign trade zone application.
Commissioners are telling Dennis Puccinelli, Foreign Trade Zone Board executive secretary in Washington, D.C., that Delphi -- "a major Trumbull County manufacturer" -- needs the approval "to achieve its business objectives involving international commerce."
The application already has the blessing of the Northeast Ohio Trade and Economic Consortium and two local school boards. NEOTEC is a nine-county economic development partnership that promotes domestic trade, international trade and global competitiveness of the region and its businesses.
NEOTEC administers what's known as "Foreign Trade Zone 181" which would be expanded here. Its member counties are Ashtabula, Columbiana, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull and Wayne counties.
Delphi makes the application as it is vacating its Warren Distribution Center on North River Road, moving operations to its manufacturing facility at of Larchmont Avenue and North River Road in Howland and Bazetta townships. The corporation's lease at the 655 North River Road facility expires in November.
The distribution center serves Delphi facilities and customers across North America. Approval of the manufacturing site as a "general purpose, foreign trade zone" would result in the exemption of certain Delphi inventory from personal property taxes.
That, however, would result in a net annual loss of revenues to the Howland and Lakeview school districts. Because those school boards also support Delphi's application, the corporation has agreed to restore 35 percent of the revenues lost on a continuing basis.