Schumer to Sikorsky: Pay up

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer called on Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. to “promptly and favorably turn over” its upstate New York facility to local officials, after the company’s decision to shutter the plant at a cost of 570 jobs.

Stratford-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. is a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp., whose Carrier Corp. division remains a major employer in upstate New York. Sikorsky has a unit also in Rochester, N.Y. called Impact Technologies.

Schumer indicated Sikorsky’s Big Flats, N.Y. facility is valued at $15 million. He added Chemung County might not become eligible for assistance from the U.S. Commerce Department until an agreement for control of the facilities is reached.

In a letter to Sikorsky President Mick Maurer, Schumer said Sikorsky still owes $25 million on its Chemung County mortgages, and asked the company to pay off the balance immediately in a lump sum payment.

“In 2004, the community welcomed you with open arms (and) local, state and federal leaders did their part to ensure Sikorsky became part of the fabric that made up the local community,” Schumer wrote Maurer. “Perhaps what is most distasteful is the manner in which this decision was arrived at, that no warning was ever given to local leaders and economic development professionals, they were afforded no opportunity to prepare and make plans for how to address this major loss of jobs and blow to the region’s economy.”