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At the end of that long night — last Tuesday, May 6 — Middletown City Council had little choice but to approve the rezoning that will pave the way for a $340 million coke-producing plant to be operated by SunCoke Energy of Knoxville.

In an aging industrial city that is bleeding jobs and counting pennies, council members could not walk away from a project that not only will bring in 70 well-paying jobs, but will also protect the viability of AK Steel's Middletown Works and its remaining 2,000 jobs. The new plant will supply coke — a key ingredient in steel making — and electricity to the Middletown Works. To do otherwise would have been dereliction on the part of council and other city leaders who recently declared Middletown "open for business."

After that declaration, council could hardly turn up its nose to the first major (and tangible) project to come here in years.

Opponents of the coke plant put on quite a show during Tuesday's public hearing, cynically comparing their plight — a new coke plant near their homes — to the 1960s civil rights movement and featuring a masterful trial-style closing argument by local attorney Frank Schiavone, a leader of the NIMBY crowd.

NIMBY? That, of course, is an acronym for "not in my backyard," a familiar cry from property owners who are adversely affected when neighboring property becomes the site of a factory or some other less-than-desirable enterprise. We sympathize with their plight and believe most Middletonians do as well.

But at the end of the night — after all the photo presentations, dirtied white gloves and emotional testimony about air pollution — their argument essentially remained "not in my back yard." Schiavone's sardonic presentation, including photos of all the businesses and homes that would be "devastated" by possible pollution from the SunCoke plant, lost its punch when he casually suggested an alternative — leveling an Oneida residential neighborhood near AK Steel's existing coke plant to make room for SunCoke.

Wait a minute. That only shifts the purported source of pollution a couple of miles to the east. Wouldn't those nearby homes and businesses still be devastated, according to Schiavone's logic?

The real goal of Schiavone's alternative, of course, is to move the SunCoke plant away from his personal property, and those of his neighbors. Fortunately, council didn't pay heed to this self-serving plan, especially since there's no indication that AK Steel and SunCoke are interested in relocating hundreds of families and acquiring their properties in Oneida.

Council's vote to approve the rezoning Tuesday will undoubtedly result in more stall-tactic lawsuits from the opponents, and judges will be left to sort it all out — unless some out-of-court settlement is reached.

We applaud council's patience last Tuesday, allowing the speakers on both sides of the debate plenty of time and latitude to make their cases. Many speakers, including opponents, told council they were glad they weren't in council's shoes, a subtle acknowledgment that council had little choice but to approve the rezoning.

And that they did. Now both sides will continue the fight in other public hearings/meetings and presumably in court. In the meantime, we urge City Hall to attend to two other job-threatening matters.

Neighboring Garden Manor Retirement Village has said it might consider closing or relocating if the SunCoke plant is built. Whether its owners are prepared to do that, city leaders can't gamble with the 400 jobs at Garden Manor, and must work diligently to preserve those jobs and to keep this valuable business in the city.

Unrelated to the SunCoke plant is the possible relocation by AK Steel of 75 research employees still working at its Grove Street facility here, after AK moved its executive headquarters to West Chester Twp. last year. Whatever ground the city gains by acquiring 70 SunCoke jobs would be neutralized if the city cannot convince AK Steel to keep the research jobs here.

Last week was not an easy week for City Council members, but we believe they made the right call on the SunCoke rezoning. Now city officials must quickly turn their attention to preserving and retaining the jobs at Garden Manor and on Grove Street.

If you were a member of the Middletown City Council, how would you vote on rezoning for SunCoke?

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