[CPEO-IRF] Roosevelt Roads closure hurts Ceiba (PR)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Base closure hurts town
Businesses are closing or hurting in Ceiba, Puerto Rico.

By Matthew Hay Brown
Orlando Sentinel (FL)
August 1, 2005

CEIBA, Puerto Rico -- Linda Chan surveyed her restaurant and sighed. 
When she opened Rico City four years ago, its menu of dishes from her 
native China attracted dozens of lunchtime customers from the nearby 
U.S. Navy base at Roosevelt Roads.

Now it was 1 p.m. on a sultry weekday, and her place was empty. Another 
restaurant, a convenience store and a clothes shop were padlocked shut. 
There were few pedestrians, and more spaces than cars parked around the 
colonial central plaza.

The departure last year of the Navy -- and 6,000 employees and the $300 
million they pumped into the local economy annually -- has hit this 
sleepy community of 18,000 on the eastern tip of Puerto Rico hard. 
Public revenues are falling, unemployment is rising, residents are 
leaving -- and business such as Chan's are struggling to survive.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-asecmceiba01080105aug01,0,867840.story?coll=orl-home-headlines

--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
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