Ohio Town Mourns as GM Closes Shop

The last car rolled off the assembly line Wednesday night at the 64-year-old General Motors plant in a shutdown that one official in this Cincinnati enclave compares to a spoiled child turning on its parents.

The closing of GM’s Norwood plant, by far the biggest employer in this town of 26,000, cost 4,000 jobs and was the first of 11 planned in four states by 1990.

“What I’d like to see right now is every worker in the United States to come out in the street and tell the corporations, ‘That’s enough,’ ” said Paul Cipollone, 46, an employee at the plant for 21 years.

The plant has been making Pontiac Firebirds and Chevrolet Camaros. The last car to roll off the line at 8 p.m. was a Camaro, officials said. GM will continue to produce the two sports cars at its Van Nuys plant.

Layoffs were made here Monday and Tuesday, with 1,600 employees scheduled to work their final day Wednesday. About 750 hourly employees remained at the plant to pack up materials and tear down machinery.

Mary Richmond waited for her husband, Arthur, as he left the plant for the final time Monday.

“We just came to meet him because it’s the end of a life and the beginning of a new one,” she said. “We’ve been together almost 36 years. We share the good and the bad.”

Some workers asked townspeople to wear black armbandsor ribbons to show support for the laid-off workers.

GM generated more than $2.6 million a year in tax revenue for Norwood, or about 28% of the city’s budget, officials said.

“It’s terribly devastating,” said Mayor Joe Sanker. “We are caught in a real bind now.”

Norwood, facing a potential $1.8-million deficit by year’s end, has laid off 26 municipal workers and has not replaced 22 others, cut salaries, halted spending on improvements such as sidewalk repairs and proposed a tax increase, officials said.

Earlier this month, the city filed a $316-million suit against GM, seeking punitive damages and costs of improvements made to accommodate the auto maker and the 59-acre plant, which opened in 1923.

“What the city of Norwood has done is nurture a relationship with GM . . . accommodate them and indulge them at every point assistance was requested, just like you would indulge a child,” said Robert Kelly, city law director.

“We have an overindulged child down here. We’ve raised a brat.”

GM says it has taken steps to help Norwood, including agreeing to withhold about $700,000 a year in taxes from unemployment benefits.

But it rejected a city request for nearly $12 million over five years to help the city make the transition. GM also turned down a similar, but smaller, request from the school district.

Workers have the option of entering job retraining programs that GM and the United Auto Workers union are sponsoring.