Mayor Lou Barletta of Hazleton, a small city just south of I- 80/I- 81 crossroads in Luzerne County, just south of Wilkes- Barre, may have raised more than a few eyebrows with his introduction earlier this year of

This new distribution center in Carlisle will serve 430 Borders and Waldenbooks stores along the east coast. A second- phase returns processing and re- shipment operation scheduled for 2008 will serve the company's 1,200 stores nationwide.

his no- tolerance Illegal Immigration Relief Act ordinance, calling for steeper punishments for businesses and landlords aiding and abetting illegal aliens, and for English- only communications for all city documents. "Let me be clear," he wrote in an open letter. "This ordinance is intended to make Hazleton one of the most difficult places in the U.S. for illegal immigrants."
   That doesn't mean it's a difficult place to work in general.
   In June, Chicago- based Gonnella Frozen Products became the fourth company to locate in Humboldt Industrial Park North in Hazleton, where it will construct a 100,000- sq.- ft. (9,290- sq.- m.) facility to produce and distribute frozen dough up and down the east coast. The $34.3- million project is the company's first since it moved into a new facility in Aurora, Ill., in 2002. The state beat out at least two other states in the site selection.
   "We've had a total of 16 projects in Luzerne County through the Governor's Action Team," said Dennis Yablonsky, Pennsylvania's secretary of community and economic development, at the announcement. "In the last three years the state has invested $240 million in Luzerne County, which has cut the unemployment rate from 6.5 percent to 5.5 percent and created 5,300 more jobs plus the 72 new ones today."
   According to the Conway Data New Plant Database, investments in Hazleton alone over the past two years have included another frozen- foods investment, valued at $23 million, by General Mills, a $20- million distribution center from nutritional supplement company NBTY and a $95- million investment in a cocoa processing facility by Archer Daniels Midland, which had looked throughout the Mid- Atlantic region before announcing its choice of Hazleton in April 2006. The ADM facility is expected to be operational in mid- 2007.
   Another outpost on I- 81 seeing job growth is Carlisle, in Cumberland County, which in June welcomed the opening of a 600,000- sq.- ft. (55,740- sq.- m.) distribution center from Borders Group that will create more than 400 new jobs and distribute to more than 430 Borders and Waldenbooks stores throughout the Northeast and Mid- Atlantic regions. The facility is part of a six- DC national network that ships more than 240 million books annually.
   The Carlisle facility is a move up in size from the 125,000- sq.- ft. (11,613- sq.- m.) facility Borders is closing in nearby Middletown. Approximately half of Middletown's 100 employees have transferred to the new facility, which now employs 180 workers. That number will rise in early 2008 when the company opens a book return and re- shipment facility that will serve all 1,200 Borders and Waldenbooks stores in the U.S.