Here are the "money quotes:"

Ohio town that stopped GM from leaving once before vows to do it again December 1, 2018

It was 1998 and the General Motors plant had been given a few months to live.

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Then they went to the town and asked locals to prove it. "We got the Chamber of Commerce on board, and we came up with this simple idea that engaged the entire community. It was called ‘Bring It Home.’ We had signs in every business, home, church. People wore blue ribbons. The workers knew the entire valley had their back,” said Graham.

In return, union members gave deep concessions and GM brought the Chevrolet Cobalt to Lordstown. "We lived to fight another day,” said Graham.

When he retired in 2011, he thought they’d weathered the storm for good.

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Then, on Monday, GM announced it would end production at four plants in the US — the one here in Lordstown, two in Michigan and one in Baltimore, all by next spring. The move comes just less than 10 years after the US government distributed $50.2 billion in bailouts to GM after the 2008 economic crisis, followed by the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the summer of 2009.

The Treasury Department auditor estimated in 2014 that American taxpayers lost $11.2 billion in the GM deal.

The sprawling 6.2-million-square-foot assembly plant employs more than 1,600 people and has solely manufactured GM’s compact Cruze vehicle since 2010.

Now, Graham is encouraging new union leadership to put a flyer out reassuring townsfolk that everything is being done to get a new product allocated for Lordstown.

"Now is not the time to panic,” said Graham, 71, now a Democratic city council president in Warren. "Just do your job, do it right, do it well like we’ve been doing since 1966, and good things happen. I have all the confidence in the world that General Motors is not gonna let that plant just blow in the wind. I have a gut feeling, just like I did 20 years ago.

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