MONTICELLO, NY — The proposed slaughterhouse in Liberty—more formally known as the Southern Catskills Red Meat Processing Facility—was the topic of discussion at a meeting on October 8 and the government center.

Jennifer Brylinski, executive director of the Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency (IDA), said that out of the requests for proposals sent to 38 different entities, there was only one response. She said “Their proposal met the objectives of our project, so though we only received one proposal, it was a really good one.”

Addressing members of the county legislature, she said last week the IDA received a drawdown from the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) for $734,000, which, she said was “really a godsend because we’ve sucked our finances dry to make this happen, and so that’s reimbursement for all the money we’ve put out.”

She described working with the DOC at the end of the process as hectic. She said, “I don’t have to tell people here what it’s like when you have to work with federal agencies, but every day was another thing that they wanted.” One of the requests required seven pounds of paper.”

She said all of the paperwork with DOC had to be cleared by September 30, which required amending the original proposal, and that in turn involved many approvals.

The project began about 10 years ago with the county pursuing a small-scale slaughterhouse, but the process was not going well, so the IDA volunteered to take it on, to see if they could push it through.

She was asked if this was a model IDA would want to follow again. She replied, “Oh my God, no.” She said, “Truthfully, if we had all know how hard it was going to be we might not have volunteered to take on the project.”

She said the IDA is still waiting to be reimbursed from New York State for another $320,000.

Ira Steingart, a county legislator and chair of the IDA, said while the IDA’s portion of construction is nearly done, the operator will have much more to do before the doors open. He said, “The operator is going have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to finish building. They will have to put in floor and interior. We believe they should design the building based on the way they want the flow [of animal processing] to be.”

The interested operator, who has not yet been named publicly, is now putting financing together, and may be in place by the end of the year.

It’s not yet clear when local farmers may be able to bring livestock to the facility for processing because it will depend on when the operator is able to finish construction of the facility.