KSFY Live In The Morning anchors Chris Studer and Valerie Gutierrez talk with city leaders throughout South Dakota about their towns, what's happening there and what's new.

They talked to Mayor Mike Levsen from the city of Aberdeen. The city has a population of about 25,000. It's in the northeast part of the state, in Brown County.

Mayor Levsen said Aberdeen could add about 2,000 jobs during the next five years. The addition of a beef processing plant and a wind turbine blade factory, is helping the city move forward with many changes.

Molded Fiber Glass Cos. will move into a $25 million plant on the city's northeast side. Mayor Levsen said that will bring in about750 jobs. On Aberdeens south side, you'll find work being completed on the $55 million Northern Beef Packers processing plant. The plant will emphasize making South Dakota certified beef. When it's complete this fall, it will process up to 300 cattle per day and employ about 200 workers. The goal is to one day process 1,500 cattle per day and have more than 600 employees.

Mayor Levsen is optomistic about the city's economic future. It's an improvement from just a few years ago following major job losses in the late 80's when Imprimis Technology closed its Aberdeen plant. The city lost more than a thousand jobs because of the closing.

Now things have improved. City leaders are working on setting up the city's infrastructure to accomodate all the new residents. While the rest of the country is dealing with a rocky housing market, if you look around Aberdeen, you'll see alot of housing construction going on. Last spring a flood in Aberdeen condemned dozens of homes, adding to the housing need, but the new jobs are also fueling demand.

Mayor Levsen said the city is recovering from that flood. There are still people dealing with the aftermath but local agencies are pitching in to help.

In addition to the jobs and housing improvements, supporting the city's infrastructure includes making upgrades to the airport and area highways.

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