U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno sent Chillicothe Mayor Luke Feeney a sharply worded letter on Saturday, Oct. 31, defending his and U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s work on the city’s closed paper mill and disputing remarks Feeney made about Husted at a press conference tied to President Donald Trump’s visit to Chillicothe this week. “Do the work we were elected to do or get out of the way,” Moreno wrote in the letter, which ChillicotheNow published.
Feeney and other Democrats raised the mill at the press conference, accusing Husted of failing to follow through on promises to save it, ChillicotheNow reported. In the letter, Moreno called the remarks a “cheap political attack on Senator Husted one week before an election.” Husted is on the ballot in Tuesday’s Nov. 3 general election.
Moreno wrote that the buyer he and Husted identified and recruited for the site “has already restored 210 jobs in less than 12 months at wages equal to or greater than those workers earned before,” according to the letter published by ChillicotheNow. He also pointed to an additional 60 days of full wages and benefits secured for mill employees and a $5.5 million commitment from the previous owner to former employees, Heritage Headlines reported in its account of the letter.
The senator wrote that paper production is set to resume at the site by the end of the year, alongside other manufacturing, and that he “will not rest until the site employs more than the 862 jobs lost last year,” ChillicotheNow reported. Moreno also highlighted nitrile glove production in Chillicothe, writing that he has advanced legislation — the American Glove Act of 2026 — to require federal agencies to source nitrile gloves exclusively from American manufacturers.
The exchange lands while the mill’s owner faces mounting legal and regulatory scrutiny. At least three civil lawsuits were filed in Ross County this summer, including a claim of more than $3.4 million allegedly owed to Columbia Gas and a $3 million dispute with another company that had planned to develop a data center on the property, along with scrutiny over an Ohio EPA violation, ChillicotheNow reported.
The city’s own next step on the site runs through zoning. Chillicothe is writing new zoning rules for data centers, with a public input meeting set for Nov. 16 that Feeney announced at a city council meeting, according to ChillicotheNow.
What happens next plays out on two tracks at once: voters decide Husted’s race on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and the city takes public input on its data-center rules on Nov. 16 — while the test of the senators’ promises, paper production resuming by year’s end, is still ahead.