Warren council lends official support to GM Lordstown workers

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Warren City Council presented a resolution in support of General Motors Lordstown workers to United Auto Workers Local 1112 President Dave Green and Shop Chairman Dan Morgan at Wednesday’s council meeting.

Council President Jim Graham, a former president of UAW Local 1112, told the standing-room-only crowd, “We just want to let you know we are behind you 150 percent, every municipality in the area, because we know the importance of this plant to the area.”

He said GM Lordstown workers have brought a “work ethic and dedication to the product, and now it’s time for GM to reciprocate” and give the plant another car to build.

He said GM Lordstown workers do a lot of good in the community, providing lots of money to the United Way and other charities, but they “don’t advertise everything they do in this community. Everybody is starting to realize how important you are to this community,” he said.

General Motors announced Nov. 26 it will idle the GM Lordstown plant – along with four others in North America – and end production of the Lordstown-built Chevy Cruze in March.

Warren Mayor Doug Franklin, who also worked at GM Lordstown for 25 years, announced that mayors from Ohio’s 30 largest cities called the Ohio Mayor’s Alliance will be part of a state Driving It Home campaign, inspired by the local Drive It Home campaign aimed at keeping the plant working.

“We are all in this together,” Franklin said.

“I want to thank the city,” Morgan said. “It means so much to our members to see all of this support. It makes you feel really good. We are going through a tough time but will get through this.”

Green added, “All of these people here, and all of our members, they’re the ones who do the hard work. They’re the ones who have been giving back to the community. I’m just the representative of those people.

“They do an awesome job, and they have made sacrifices to keep General Motors here. They have made sacrifices over the last 52 years, and we are going to continue to do what they need to do, but we want to make sure General Motors knows that we’re here to stay, and we’re not going to go away. We’re not going down easy.”

Also at the meeting, Franklin announced that the owner of the Packard Apartments on North Park Avenue downtown has been awarded a $675,000 Historical Tax Credit that he will use to renovate the building.

Franklin said getting the tax credit was the “biggest hurdle” to the owner’s plans to renovate the building, which was built by the Packard family that built the Packard automobile in Warren.