Brown: Vindicator closing will hurt the area

By DAVID SKOLNICK

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said the closure of The Vindicator on Aug. 31 will hurt the Mahoning Valley.

Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, said at the start of a Monday meeting with the Mahoning River Mayors’ Association he’s troubled by the newspaper’s impending closure not only because of the loss of jobs, but because its staff has a great understanding of the area.

The Vindicator provides the correct perspective of the region, unlike the national media, he said.

Girard Mayor James Melfi, an association member, agreed with Brown saying he shared his concern about the loss of the newspaper. Melfi said his first job was as a Vindicator delivery boy.

Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, an association member, also lamented the closing of The Vindicator, adding that the loss of 144 employees in the downtown area is a concern.

After the meeting at the City Centre One building, Brown visited The Vindicator to meet with employees and offer words of encouragement.

The newspaper’s closure comes a few months after GM ended production in March of the Chevrolet Cruze at the 53-year-old Lordstown plant in March, eliminating about 1,600 jobs left at that facility. As recently as January 2017, there were 4,500 workers there.

The association’s mayors said they’re seeing GM workers in their communities putting their houses up for sale as they leave the area for jobs at the automaker’s other plants.

Brown said he’s heard nothing new about the future of the idled Lordstown facility.

I’m “continuing to push [GM CEO] Mary Barra and her management team to look at the electric vehicles,” he said. GM plans to build “20 new electric vehicles by 2023. A number of them, we assume, they don’t tell us, would be sedans so they should easily fit into what this incredibly productive workforce of 4,500 [that] knows what to do in the Valley, in Lordstown. There’s no reason they can’t retool for that use.”

He added: “I’m still concerned that GM takes these dollars that it gets from shutdowns, from layoffs and from tax breaks and moves too much to Mexico and takes too much themselves in stock buybacks.”

GM has been in discussions for a few months with Workhorse Group Inc. and an affiliated, newly formed entity to sell the Lordstown plant for the production of electric vehicles there. Workhorse hasn’t provided details of the new company, but has said it plans to hire about 400 people over the next three years if it buys the Lordstown facility.

Brown said he will “keep looking for others to work in this plant if we can’t get GM to do an electric vehicle in there.”

When asked about President Donald Trump’s tweets that four Democratic members of Congress should “go back” from where they came – three were born in the United States and one is a naturalized citizen – Brown said, “It’s unAmerican because of the racism involved. But it’s also unAmerican because we’re a country of immigrants.”

Brown said, however, he’s “not interested in impeachment” of Trump because “that would just tear the country up.”

“But if there’s a whole lot more evidence, we proceed and whatever direction we go. But most likely that’s all about the 2020 election and the voters will choose: do you want to keep this divisive name-calling president who, where the White House looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives, do you want that kind of White House or do you want a kind of White House that fights for workers? This president has betrayed workers in the Mahoning Valley. He’s betrayed workers all over this country,” Brown said.