Economy

GM Bankruptcy Affects San Diego Dealers

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published June 1, 2009 at 12:06 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

Flags fly outside the General Motors world headquarters building May 27, 2009 in Detroit, Michigan. GM announced today that it failed trying to trade its bondholders shares of stock for debt, which makes a bankruptcy filing for the company more likely.

GM Bankruptcy Affects San Diego Dealers

The number of GM dealerships in San Diego will shrink as a result of the automaker’s bankruptcy. But the GM dealerships that survive expect to be stronger.

Two GM dealerships have already closed in San Diego but almost 40 GM franchises still operate in the county.

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David Grundstrom is president of Marvin K. Brown Auto Center in Mission Valley. He says some dealerships have already received a letter from GM, notifying them their franchises wont be renewed in 2010.

"We didn’t get the letter," he says,"Unfortunately, for some who did, we feel very badly for them, because they are, for the most part, family owned businesses and they’ve been around for a long, long time."

Marvin K Brown sales included Cadillac, Buick, GMC Trucks and two models GM has announced it will sell: Hummer and Saab. But Grundstrom says he hopes his dealership will continue to offer those cars under new ownership.

He has laid off about 20 percent of his employees in the past two years. But he believes that under GM’s restructuring, pent up demand for new cars will make the remaining franchises stronger when the economy picks up.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.