CAPITAL REGION Local auto dealers appeal closure Action is costly, unsure of success BY AMEERAH CETAWAYO Gazette Reporter
Auto dealers who had their franchises taken away are lining up to mount an appeal but the process won’t be quick or inexpensive. Monday marks the deadline to appeal for dealers who were handed wind-down agreements from automakers General Motors and Chrysler last year to file a petition to enter into arbitration. The owners of Scotia Motors and Terry Chrysler Jeep in Burnt Hills said Friday they will join the 900 dealerships nationwide seeking to be reinstated. Long Island attorney Leonard Bellabia will represent the two Capital Region dealerships. thoughts on “We weren’t left this story at with a lot of choic- www.daily es,” Scotia Motors gazette.com owner Jim Koehler said, criticizing Chrysler when he spoke to The Gazette about cutting longtime businesses like his 63-yearold dealership. “We’re going to do it,” Terry Chrysler Jeep owner Charlie Morris said. “We have nothing to lose.” Morris also owns a Ford dealership that is nearly 40 years old across Route 50 from the Chrysler dealership he ran for a quarter century. The dealer cuts authorized by the federal auto task force that oversaw bailout funds last year were too deep, he said. “You just can’t take something away from someone without giving them compensation,” Morris said. “Businesses come and go and consolidations can occur if you have willing parties — to do it the way they did is a real shame.” GM and Chrysler closed dealers they said weren’t performing well, citing the need to make the cuts to keep the remaining ones healthy as the automakers emerged from bankruptcy. But longtime dealers across the country called the closings unfair and put pressure on politicians to mediate, resulting in a law requiring binding arbitration. ................>>>>.................>>>>..............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00101&AppName=1
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