the month to this e-mail address. the significance of this became clear on june 2 when the content of the big letter have been d@h"@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @r not as difficult as those we survived in the great depression and the world wars. general motors has been with us the whole time from 1918

forward. we have been gm to our community, now it is a dark time when gm must abandon our town, our region and gas. just as gm is an icon that we enjoy iconic status of our region, always there and noise level and compassionate, always act irresponsibly. the letters we were hobbling in their appreciation of our caliber and quality of service and committed to support. moreover there was confusion as to why ben now 80,000 strong will be abandoned as will we come other dealer of choice, the largest gm dealership in central and eastern oregon. their world is crumbling, things they thought they could count on being are taken away, longstanding reliability, integrity, a safe harbor in a very real sense our customers are afraid. who benefits from this taking? this cancellation that is so unnecessary, so wrong, so wrong executed, not gm? having no dealer in bennett will not for increased jann sales, up to a 16,000 people in our region

left solely with a small gm dealer in the tiny town and as parameter was limited inventory and repair capacity, not our community who has relied on us a voice to generously support its activities, not our employees or highly trained to work on sophisticated gm products like cadillac and chevrolet and service clientele with courtesy and compassion. not our customers to the spot the dui greeted thinking we would be here forever. that is our business model, the longest term imagine os/2 it right. be here for the long haul, and the loyalty of their clientele and they will reward you with a long-term patronage. over the years that has been gm business model to and we were a good fit for 91 years until it got cut from the team. why are these cuts necessary? i recently attended a meeting of letter recipients and oregon -- was there? a roomful of respectable business people with him, attended business meetings for 30 years, obviously they're able businesspeople to have survived as have we. the marketplace should be the sole arbiter of who should fall

by the wayside, not the arbitrary acts of well many administrators. the plan to replace us with another gm dealer, why have we been deprived of the opportunity to make a transition with their approval? will our market be awarded to gm favored or insider? this will seem to be an unreasonable and wrongful taking of a valuable asset, nurtured through the years only to be snatched by an overreaching at a moment of opportunity inside the bankruptcy. and one of the inventory that remains? in our case of $4 million, the value of which fishing by a million or more from what we paid. over a year's supply of a gm cars a witter sale. half million dollars of parts cannot be returned. what i would hope for in such dire straits would be a request the reason, allow us to provide support for those in gm customers and our region and relieve us of the inventory obligations we incurred in good faith by repurchasing it will be paid. this is a small price to pay for a potentially depriving long and painful associate of its

livelihood. >> thank you, sp -- mr. thomas. >> my name is frank blanklenbeckler, the dealer principal of carlisle chevrolet cadillac in waxahachie, texas and to my knowledge the only chevrolet dealership in the senate texas. the cadillac line was added in 1990 and the jeep line was added around 1978. this dealership has operated continuously in the same community and the same family ownership since 1926 the dealership was founded in 1926 by my maternal grandfather. my father frank blanklenbeckler jr. who was awarded a bronze star for his service to his country during world war ii and you received a master's in tax

law from harvard it married my mother in 1947 and moved to waxahach to beat the dealer for the next 55 years. i read with of the university of texas in 1974 with an mba. since that time i've had one job. i have been a gm chief dealer for nearly 35 years. approximately three years ago my son graduated from old mess and join me at the dealership to fulfill his childhood dream of being an automobile dealer. like his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather before him during these 84 years of dealership ownership and operation my family has been one of the most generous and civic minded in the waxahachie. my family was instrumental in the founding of baylor hospital, the ymca, served on the school board and made many other numerous contributions to numerous to mention. the point of this type of intervention is to say that my family has been an integral and generous part of it waxahachie

for a longtime. on may 13th i received a letter from chrysler stating our no longer be a jeep dealer after june 9. on may 14 there received a letter from gm saying that my chevrolet and cadillac dealer agreements would not be extended beyond 2010. in 24 hours i was told that everything my family and i have worked for for 84 years would be taken away with no compensation of. i have introduced a ford was conveys backs about carlisle chevrolet and out like to request a this folder and the balance of my testimony to be entered into the record. >> without objection, mr. walden has applied to the committee and without objection will be part of your testimony. >> the pages of this show the location of the dealership and include an article by the local paper and pays a fax about the dealership. out particularly encourage you to look at the total amount of taxes paid by carlisle in 2008, about 1.3 million year in

contained sales history, csi scores and a couple of articles about the dealership that is located next door. i can assure you that carlyle was not the bottom of the heap. in regards to its peers. purvis folder. i want to mention of my employees. over the year carlyle has numerous employees and have worked for my family for 35 to 50 years. time doesn't permit me to do them justice. my point is carlyle has had an currently has the best people in the industry. i would like to mention to the committee the human element of these actions by gm and chrysler, nearly 90 souls depend on the carlyle for their assistance and with our closing these people will be subjected to serious economic hardship. i had numerous offers to sell my business and i have had that right taken away. i family will be left with a single person facility with no tenant. this is senseless.

my grandfather pay for carlyle chevrolet from his labors, my father paid my grandmother for carlyle chevrolet to his efforts, it took me nearly 20 years to pay my parents for carlyle chevrolet committed to gm and chrysler a mere 24 hours to take carlisle chevrolet from maine. this makes no sense. why is this happening? gm and chrysler have stated publicly they have not used the bankruptcy code to usurp state and local motor vehicle cousin statute, this is patently not true. i don't care how it is gone, they have offered a wide done agreement or participation agreement and the content of these is horrible. dealers are told to sign the agreement or gm will petition the bankruptcy court to have them immediately turn. there is no alternative to sending these new agreements, this is wrong and out and buy to address what i think is most important part of my testimony. 24 hours my business was essentially taken from me with no explanation other than that these are difficult times. out in this country in a man's property be taken without due

process and without compensation and apparently given to another dealer with a better political collections who has been my committee for less than a year for nothing? i adamantly thing my constitutional rights have been violated. i think i am a victim of an illegal taking. this is the most important points of this hearing in my mind and i think it is the feeling of all the dealers that are the same position. i feel like it should be the concern of all americans. when your property rights are destroyed, how long will it be until happens to you? i am hurt. i feel violated. and i am extremely upset. i wear my father's bronze star label pinned on my toe to. he was truly a member of the greatest generation. i am glad that he is not a live to witness this terrible

injustice. two have risked his life for a country that do what they're doing, it would have destroyed him. i love my country and i love my state. i feel great pain in what is happening. it is my hope and my prayer that i will be able to continue my life and not be consumed by bitterness should the situation not be reversed. in this country not return to the tenants of the founding fathers who created it. thank you for your and my testimony. >> thank you. and mr. paddock, your opening statement. you might want to pull that microphone closer. they don't pick up as well as we would like.

thanks. >> good morning. i am a go for the dealer, i am a dealer owner of paddock chevrolet in new york or we employ 135 of the finest most hard-working americans in the buffalo area. i am proud to say that paddock chevrolet is currently the largest gm dealership in the nation and we have been proudly serving western new york for almost 75 years. i am really pleased to be here today. it seems especially appropriate for me at least since my father passed away exactly 15 years ago to this day. it was on that day the livelihoods of employees of my employees were passed on to my hands and our company's responsibility to our community had to be preserved. in addition to my responsibilities at the dealership i serve as chairman, gm's national dealer council known as the nbc for the past two and a half years position i was elected to but my fellow gm dealers. it this in our industry is this -- the u.s. marketplace for automobiles is the most open and

competitive in the world. with that competition taking place across a wide variety of brands culminating dealers and now the internet. but it is a recognized fact that since 2006 in rapid decline of our retail business across all adam anchors has occurred. in our industry has gone from an annual selling pace of over 70 million units to just more than 9 million. my fellow dealers every brand of both gm and done jim have suffered huge financial losses in a very short time the amount of working capital necessary to fund their day-to-day operations has been severely diminished. in addition to bank loans to dealers for working capital are essentially nonexistent. as i said before you today, i am a franchisee of a company going through a painful restructuring committee and restructuring that is not only necessary but critical to our future of our customers suppliers, dealers, employees and other

stakeholders. some of my fellow dealers many of whom i consider friends received notices of this past few weeks that they will not be part of the new gm. well, i cannot advocate determination of any individual dealership. i will tell you that the dealer council will work vigorously with a senior gm management over the past two and a half years to address circumstances that we dealers face today. during my tenure as chairman of meetings between the nbc and gm management have and will continue to be led with dealer profitability as the primary goal of our dealer network. that is because dealer profitability and every investment it makes possible a the keys to improving our customer expands at a dealership. and improving that experience is essentially -- essential two our ability to compete against our best competitors. i also can tell you that regarding the restructuring of gm dealer network to improve its

competitiveness, gm has elected to wind down affected dealers over 17 months time. allowing them to make an orderly business planning decision about their futures. in addition gm has recognized the need -- >> keep going to buy gm has the recognized the need to offer certain compensation that dealers winding down their operations, something chrysler clearly chose not to do. before i conclude i should tell you that the vast majority of gm dealers i know are also overwhelmingly up losing about gm future. they believe that the uncompromising quality, reliability and dependability of our current portfolio vehicles. i can tell you that my 26 years as paddock chevrolet i have never had a better porfolio vehicles to sell. the stunning designs and compelling fuel economy improvements of these vehicles gives us hope for the future. in closing let me say i

appreciate your time and more importantly understand -- your understanding of the@@@@ thank you for this opportunity and i look for to answering questions. >> thank you.

we have won the votes and let members know i plan on getting to this testimony of this witness and take a 15 minute break and get right back and finish up this hearing. it is the only vote today so we will get it done. >> mr. chairman, and members of the subcommittee, my name is daniel and i'm the general shareholder of to, dodge an automobile dealership in tacoma, washington. thank you for the opportunity to tell you that too, dodgers store in how the target funds you authorize your being used. two, dodge has been in business since 1972. until this with the dealership was valued at several million dollars and employed 71 people. in the month of april 2009 the last month for which we have a complete report reports prepared by chrysler show that too, dodge was ranked number one in western washington and number two in the entire set of washington for the sale of a new dodge vehicles. these reports prepared by

chrysler also show that add of eight western states covered by the reports we rank 32 out of 313 dealers for the sale of dodge vehicles. other reports prepared by chrysler for the area chrysler turned team washington which covers more than a set of washington shows and then in 2006 to, -- tacoma dodge was ranked seven out of 60 dealerships and in 2007 it was ranked eighth that of 41 dealerships and in 2000 aid to our worst year ever because of the economy and the public's lack of enthusiasm for dodge vehicles we still ranked eighth out of 35 dealerships. the stellar sales rankings were accomplished in competition with other dealers selling multiple lines of chrysler vehicles were as tacoma dodge only had the opportunity to sell dodge brand vehicles.

the dealer performance report prepared by chrysler for year end 2008 comparing tacoma dodge with the dodge dealers in washington state shows we have a net earnings of $1,704,249. or as the group average for the same time was $680. yes, only six saturday dollars average per dealership. we enjoyed the same success with the parts business. the dealer scorecard for december 2008 report prepared by chrysler shows that in to assassinate tacoma dodge purchased $3,895,166 worth of new parts from chrysler. or as the average dealer within the united states purchased a total of only $746,107 worth of parts. chrysler designates its top 100 dealers for the sales of cars as masters dealers. we were one of the top 100 in

fact, we ranked number 76 among all the chrysler dealers in the united states for the sale of parts. in the area of customer satisfaction and retention we consistently outperformed our peers. as of february 2009 to, dodge had it will represent customer production averaged as compared to 17% average for all of the chrysler dealers in the western united states. our problems began when chrysler signed as an unreasonably high minimum sales requirement, requiring us to sell an unrealistically high number of vehicles. we didn't understand why chrysler would assign a session on reasonably high number so we look to the demographics and found that they made several errors in a traffic patterns and other demographics they use for our market area. we then pointed this out to chrysler and ask every computer our minimum skills requirements based upon the correct demographic all information. unfortunately chrysler refused to even consider our request. in the spring of 2008i attended

the only dealer meeting unaware of where by representatives of chrysler's plant project genesis to the dealers in western washington. project genesis is the name of their program to reduce the number of dealers and during that representatives of chrysler stated that under project genesis there will be to chrysler dealerships in pierce county washington and one of those would be the city of to, so that the news across our customers would be adequately addressed. on may 14th 2009i received notification from chrysler that it intended to terminate tacoma dodge as a dealer in the state of washington we have a franchise and to protect dealers from manufacturers unreasonably terminating a dealer. under the washington franchise act chrysler would never have been able to terminate tacoma dodge since tacoma dodge was one of his most outstanding dealers using any yardstick you want to use to measure our performance. however, the notification from chrysler told us we were being terminated under the u.s. bankruptcy laws which provide no

such protection to dealers. the termination of a tacoma dodge and leaves the city which is the second-largest city in western washington with a population of almost two and a thousand without a single chrysler dealership. chrysler's termination of us also leaves pierce county which has a population of almost 800,000 persons and that the second most populous county in the state of washington with only one chrysler dealership. as a result of chrysler's actions tacoma dodge which in april was ranked the number one dodge dealer in western washington can no longer sell any new vehicles nor can we do any warranty work on any new vehicles. we have been reduced to being a used car lot in a neighborhood automobile repair facility. in the process 35 faithful and loyal long term employees have lost their jobs and pierce county in the state of washington have lost a payroll of approximately 1.3 million per year.

again, thank you for the up and city to have given to tell you how the t.a.r.p. funds to authorize your being used. >> thank you for your testimony. we have a vote on the floor, it is only one so i will ask members to recess right now, go down and go and hear from mr.. and the mr. golic and go into questions so please come back in 50 minutes. we will give you a chance to stretch your legs and see you back in 15 minutes. we are in recess.

>> can you hear me now? chairman stupak, ranking member walden, a distinguished members of the subcommittee, i want to thank you for the honor of appearing here today. i would especially like to thank congresswoman sutton for her role in providing this opportunity to represe my fellow dealers. and we are losing seven dealerships because chrysler, the bank and the executive branch of our government and acted precipitously to deny us our economic rights. this is a public policy issue worthy of your time and worthy of congressional legislation since without you're prompt intervention to restore our

right to franchise under state law to thousand small businesses and across million have a thousand jobs will be lost. as a nation can we really afford to let this take place? i urge congress to enact a juror 2743, the bipartisan automobile dealer economic rights restoration act next week. we have a long and proud history with chrysler and gm. the majority of our stores sell these brands and these brands only. none of our stores are dual of other brands. we have a combined 374 years of business relations with chrysler alone. we are passing both chrysler and gm and we want both companies to succeed, we are committed to helping them do so. that is why we are both disappointed and perplexed by their recent actions to terminate us and over 2,000 other dealers. we are not perfect.

duri those three and 74 years of operations we have made mistakes. like chrysler's managers are managers are perfect either. nevertheless we have stood shoulder to shoulder with chrysler during good times and bad and, in fact, michael dell as the president of the dodge national dealer council lobbied this very congress for funds to belloc russell the first time. we never put on them. and they shouldn't put on us in the hundreds of others dealers who have remained committed to chrysler. this issue is not about the spitzer family. or are seven dealerships that are being terminated or even the 300 plus employees to work in them. it is about destroying the entire net worth and life's work of hundreds of a thousands employed. and i fear that these actions by chrysler and gm will lead to their demise. and all of it is unnecessary.

first, our dealerships do not cost manufacturers one dime. all products and services which chrysler and gm provide are charged back to the dealership had a profit. whether it is special tools, training, or even those colorful up brochures, we pay for all of it. we build our own facilities. we provide our own and operating capital. we hire our own people and if we lose money comes out of our pockets. second, chrysler has argued the 789 dealerships terminated or for performance reasons or to put all brands under one roof. as demonstrated by this one testimony of myself and dozens of other dealers in the bankruptcy court, many of the terminated dealerships or high performing or genesis stores or both. ..

>> this action will destroy 37000 jobs with chrysler dealers, and quite likely another 60000 or more of a gm dealerships. and millions and millions of local tax dollars will be lost. and all for no good reason.

in fact, this plan may ultimately destroy the new chrysler and severely damaged gm's survival. dealers are there only customers. we are the face of these once proud car companies in our communities. the fact that we have survived and prospered over the last 100 years, even as they often produced vehicles american consumers did not want, proves that independent entrepreneurs find ways to survive and create employment opportunities even in tough times. if congress does not step in, dealers will be unwilling to invest in new facilities purchase them in the dollars of inventory and otherwise risk their capital in as straight law protections are meaningless and it can all be taken away in the next downturn. fewer dealers today mean fewer sailors of chrysler and gm products tomorrow leading to a further erosion of market share for both companies.

allow the marketplace to select who lives and who dies, not some committee in detroit. as of today, approximately 350 of the 789 rejected dealers have accepted their fate by objecting -- by not objecting to their terminations. does, the accelerated rate of reduction of dealerships has already incurred for those who thought a reduction was necessary. there is no need to eliminate those of us who remain committed to chrysler and gm's success. i thank you, mr. chairman, and i can assure you that i will work tirelessly and will not rest until hr 2743 becomes law, which already has over 100 cosponsors, congresswoman sutton, congressman hoyer and ben hollen and others who have supported our bill, and we have only been out three days. so thank you for your time and i'll answer any questions.