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Commonwealth Medical College gets space in King’s building on Public Square, Wilkes-Barre

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Citizen seeking traffic light getting mixed signals from Wilkes-Barre and PennDOT

<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Jerry Lynottjlynott@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div>The acquisition of a North Carolina-based company by McCarthy Tire Service Co. will precede the closing of its specialty tire retreading plant in Somerset and the layoff of 38 workers.McCarthy filed notice June 17 with the state Department of Labor &amp; Industry it will shutter its facility that retreads off-the-road tires for heavy construction and mining vehicles. Six days later it announced it signed an asset purchase agreement for Ragan Tire Group LLC. The Concord, North Carolina company provides OTR tires to several states in the Southeast, according to a posting on McCarthy&#8217;s website.John McCarthy Jr., president of the family-owned, Wilkes-Barre-based McCarthy Tire, was on vacation and unavailable for comment Thursday.The Somerset plant, acquired in 2007 by McCarthy, will close on Aug. 17. The workforce was a combination of unionized employees, represented by the United Steelworkers District 10 in Johnstown, and non-union employees, according to the filing with the department.Even though the number of affected employees fell below the limit for advance notification set by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, McCarthy chose to notify them, the union and the local government.&#8220;Although the WARN Act does not apply to an employer unless they have 100 or more employees or if a plant closing results in 50 or more workers losing their employment, the Company has decided to follow the time guidelines and spirit of the this law and remain open for 60 more days from the date of this written notice in order to afford some time for our workforce to plan accordingly,&#8221; McCarthy said in its filing with the department.The deal to acquire the assets of the Ragan Tire Group was expected to close by the middle of this month. All of the service and operational employees of the company will join McCarthy Tire.Ragan&#8217;s operations will merge with four of McCarthy&#8217;s existing eight locations in North Carolina. The deal will give McCarthy three new locations in South Carolina and one in Georgia. Overall, McCarthy will have 49 service facilities in nine states, the company said.<div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLNews</shirttailMeta></div>

McCarthy Tire to expand in Southeast states, close plant in Somerset