Council fiddles as another car dealer closes Palo Alto Issues, posted by RS, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Jul 27, 2006 at 1:26 pm
For a couple of years now, City Council members have claimed they were concerned about the threat of car dealerships leaving our city -- and taking their sales tax dollars with them. Not only do the dealerships produce city revenues, they're also convenient for residents who want to be able to take their car in for maintenance/repair. Now Ford joins the list of dealers that have closed. Dealers in neighboring cities will sell Fords to Palo Altans, and those cities will get the sales tax dollars. What has council done to keep our dealerships from closing? A lot of talk. Talk about a new place for dealerships where the municipal service center is now located -- nothing happened, of course. Talk during the election about how dealers should just sell cars online -- not a realistic solution, but what do council members know about business? This kind of reminds me of the Hyatt Rickeys saga, where a bunch of pushy neighbors poisoned the atmosphere so much, Hyatt tore down its hotel and is building a bunch of houses -- which will create more traffic and further overwhelm our schools. When Palo Alto loses a hotel or car dealership, how does the city deal with that loss of revenue? Does it cut the city budget and layoff some employees? No way. It looks for more avenues to get residents to pay to run the city. I don't want residents to shoulder the entire burden of feeding our expensive city government. I think businesses should pay part of the bill. But it's hard to get businesses to pay if they have left town.
Posted by david, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Jul 27, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Iam am really upset that the ford store closed. I have bought many vehicles and recived great sevice. The company tried its hardest to stay open but with the slow economy(Thats right palo alo repubicans your presidents actions) The store could not last. Many people in the neighborhood have money like my self why not put it in to a fine american product like ford. No insted you go and buy some hunk of junk from over seas that looks "cool"and cost three times the amount of a ford!you have no problem with that but when you go look a ford couse your kid wants a mustang you low ball the poor guy at the dealer cousing him and the store not to make any money. You have no problem paying the lexus or Mercades dealer tons of money so you can have a car thatlet you get home from starbucks safely with yor navigation radio,cd,and butt warmer!hope fully you get lost going to safeway and hopefully car that cost an arm and a leg to put gas in to and hope to god that nothing ever hapens to the car because maintanace costs you will have to trade in your first born just to pay for that oil change.Have you ever heard the phrase " Buy american the job you save maybe your own!" all you Palo alto people are to blame thank you for not supporting the local economy! and thank you for running an other local company out of town!
Posted by david, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Jul 27, 2006 at 11:14 pm
Iam am really upset that the ford store closed. I have bought many vehicles and recived great sevice. The company tried its hardest to stay open but with the slow economy(Thats right palo alto repubicans your presidents actions) The store could not last. Many people in the neighborhood have money like my self why not put it in to a fine american product like ford. No insted you go and buy some hunk of junk from over seas that looks "cool"and cost three times the amount of a ford!you have no problem with that but when you go look a ford couse your kid wants a mustang you low ball the poor guy at the dealer cousing him and the store not to make any money. You have no problem paying the lexus or Mercades dealer tons of money so you can have a car thatlet you get home from starbucks safely with yor navigation radio,cd,and butt warmer!hope fully you get lost going to safeway and hopefully car that cost an arm and a leg to put gas in to and hope to god that nothing ever hapens to the car because maintanace costs you will have to trade in your first born just to pay for that oil change.Have you ever heard the phrase " Buy american the job you save maybe your own!" all you Palo alto people are to blame thank you for not supporting the local economy! and thank you for running an other local company out of town!
Posted by bob, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, on Jul 29, 2006 at 4:28 am
"david" sounds irrational, to say the least.
I wish we could have done more to keep car dealers from leaving/closing, but what?
I get the distinct impression that dealers want more land than they can get in PA -- and more signage than residents will allow. That was an issue in this neighborhood briefly.
It would help immensely if the city moved its corporate yard to some other location and sold or leased that space to dealers, but that's not going to happen. Staff is into empire building -- and moving is too big a threat.
No, I suspect the sales-tax-providers will go away, and the City will just impose more taxes on the rest of us. TOO BAD MORE PEOPLE DON'T VOTE -- WE COULD CHANGE THIS IF SOME OF YOU GOT OFF YOUR A**.
Posted by A.J., a resident of the Green Acres neighborhood, on Jul 30, 2006 at 9:40 pm
I'm assuming the Ford dealership closing is the one near the Carlsen Volvo? I hope the city will consider working with all parties if Carlsen is interested in expanding into that site -- and encourage Carlsen to stay in Palo Alto. I think Carlsen has always been squeezed for space, and things got worse when the Hyatt site went down. In my experience, they are the best Volvo dealership in the region, and they are a great car dealer. Lots of Volvos in this town. Maybe there is a silver lining, at least at that location, an opportunity to encourage Carlsen to stay. After all, Ford owns Volvo...
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