HERE TO STAY—Employees of William L. Morris Chevrolet celebrate outside the dealership Thursday after learning earlier this week that the company won its appeal to stay in business as a General Motors franchise. The local family-run dealership has been in business for 80 years. It was targeted by GM as one of about 2,000 dealerships to be shut down, but appealed the decision. WENDY PIERRO/Acorn Newspapers After months of uncertainty and a legal battle with parent company General Motors, William L. Morris Chevrolet in Simi found out this week that it will keep the doors to its dealership open.

President and owner Jeff Morris said he was “thrilled” when his attorney called Monday with the news that GM had not been successful in its attempt to shut down the long-standing dealership.

“I was with my wife, and we were walking along in Virginia (on vacation), and the attorney called, and it was emotional,” he said. “It’s much better going back and telling your employees that they still have a job than telling them we lost and we have to rethink things.”

General sales manager Dave Bouchard, who’s been with the dealership for nearly 35 years, echoed those sentiments.

“We’re back in business, glad to be a Chevrolet dealership,” he said, adding, “I am feeling relieved that 40 families are going to have a job coming.”

For Morris, the win means his family’s 80-year legacy in Ventura County will continue.

William L. Morris Sr. opened his first dealership in Fillmore in October 1929, just two weeks before the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression. The dealership survived and was passed on to William L. Morris Jr.

A Simi dealership opened on Los Angeles Avenue in the late 1940s.

Helmed by grandson Jeff Morris, it moved to its current location off the freeway at First and Cochran streets in 1977, making it the longest-running auto dealer in town.

Because of its history and track record of profitability, it was baffling to Morris and others that GM would want to shut the dealership down.

“The Morris family is a good, solid family. They’ve worked hard; their dealership always made money; they treat their employees like family,” Mayor Pro Tem Glen Becerra said. “Not to have a General Motors dealership after having a dealership for longer than we’ve been a city, that (would be) a bad thing to happen to Simi Valley.”

The Detroit-based automotive giant announced in May 2009 that, as part of its restructuring, it would close more than 2,000 of its nearly 6,000 U.S. dealerships by the end of 2010.

Despite receiving billions in federal aid, GM filed bankruptcy in June 2009 and became a government owned company. The plan was to trim dealer ranks, but Congress mandated that GM give dealers an appeal process.

About 1,000 dealers met the February 2010 deadline to file for arbitration in an attempt to regain their franchise licenses, and of those more than 600 dealers were immediately offered their franchises back.

The rest, including the Simi Chevy dealership, would have to go through the arbitration hearing, which didn’t begin for the Morris family until June 1.

Morris said the past year has been a difficult time for employees.

After receiving the winddown notice, jobs needed to be cut and the business needed to find new ways to keep afloat since it couldn’t receive the manufacturer’s product.

It was a struggle, but Morris said the foresight of his grandfather and father in picking “a very good piece of property in a good city” carried them through.

The dealership sustained revenue by buying new and used vehicles from other Chevy dealerships and by selling RVs. The service center stayed open as well, so from the customers’ standpoint not much changed, Morris said.

In the end, the dealership won its case because it resisted being shut down.

“The judge wrote in his findings that the Morris family and the dealership had survived for 80 years and was viable and it weighed heavily in his decision,” Morris said.

Another piece of evidence that swayed the judge was a 48-minute video testimony by local leaders, customers and employees. Morris said the outpouring of support from Mayor Paul Miller, the City Council, Supervisor Peter Foy and even Chevy’s competitors was tremendous.

Darrell Coletto, president and owner of First Honda, Nissan and Kia, said losing Chevy might boost his business initially but it wouldn’t be good for the auto center in the long term.

“Having the big franchises here and everybody advertising together, gaining a synergy, we bring more people to Simi, more customers to First Street,” he said. “Everybody gets their fair share of business.”

Simi Valley Ford President Larry Hibbler agreed.

“We all feed off of each other. It would be a sad day if William Morris Chevrolet wasn’t in Simi Valley, and I would hate to see that,” Hibbler said.

Although the dealership’s relationship with GM was “confrontational” during arbitration, Morris said the two sides shook hands at the end and he looks forward to rebuilding a strong partnership.

He is also hopeful that the economy will continue to improve and that eventually GM will be able to buy back the company from the government.

Until then, the next steps for the dealership will be working out a new franchise agreement with GM and reaching out to the community and customers who have stood behind William L. Morris Chevrolet for decades.

“That is our No. 1 priority, to welcome them back,” Morris said. “We fought hard to stay open.”