REGULAR MEETING OF THE
BELLFLOWER PLANNING COMMISSION
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2022, 7:00 P.M.
CORNELIUS CHAMBERS TESTIMONY
8. Ordinances and Resolutions for Consideration
A. Consideration and possible action to conduct a public hearing to consider an appeal application from Eitan Sharaf (representing Artesia Enterprises, LLC) of a Notice of Nonconformity Abatement for automobile sales and automobile repair center on property located at 9103-9115 Artesia Boulevard. (Continued from the October 3, 2022 Planning Commission Meeting) [The following is an excerpt from the November 7, 2022, Planning Commission Meeting of the complete testimony of Cornelius Chambers.]
Assistant City Attorney Campen – So, at this time I’d like to invite up to the podium Mr. Cornelius Chambers and I will be asking him some questions to help shed some light on the status of both the auto repair and auto dealer use at the property. Sir, can you please state your name?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto - Yes, my name is Cornelius Chambers.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Mr. Chambers are you familiar with the property know as 9103 or sometimes 9111 Artesia Boulevard? Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Yes, I am.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – How are you familiar with that location? Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Well, back in ‘99 I originally rented the location from Mr. Rottigni. I actually rented it from him before, I think back in ‘96 for a while, originally and that’s how I obtained the property.
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Assistant City Attorney Campen – What was your original business in ‘99 that you started at that location?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Well, Get Around Auto Sales and Rentals um, licensed with the DMV and City of Bellflower.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – And is that what you did at that time was sell used automobiles and rent automobiles?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Yeah, mainly sold automobiles and maybe around 2007 I started to do more rental and sales but that’s what I was doing basically.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Was your State dealer license in your own name or a corporation name?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Originally it was in my name, a proprietorship. I think about 2007 I had a corporation and then I changed it 2015 or 2016 or so (inaudible).
Assistant City Attorney Campen – The records we have show that you obtained your dealers license for the corporation in August of 2015, does that sound right? Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Yeah, sounds about right.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – And you can see the timeline representation of that, does that appear right?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Yes, that appears about right.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Now at some point did you begin to do auto repair business as well?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Yeah, about the time that Rino passed I kind of started dabbling in it but I was doing small auto repair with my rental business and you know we would keep the cars going with small repairs, oil changes, you know tune ups, small stuff like that and that’s back in maybe ‘06-‘07 is when I started doing the small stuff and I learned that I needed to have certain licenses if I was going to do those type of businesses, those type of repairs and I acquired the licensing.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – What is Cadillac Head Gasket Fix? Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Well that’s kind of like something I started doing because I bought a rental car and I more or less
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couldn’t repair it or find anybody to repair it so I kind of designed a repair system for that particular engine and I kind of started doing that because there is a viable market for that repair system that I came up with for that particular engine.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Was there any business conditions at the property that also encouraged you to get into auto repair as well? Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Well, what happened is, Mr. Rottigni passed and his son got the business and you know that’s when a little more heat started coming from the City of Bellflower. Then, about a year or two after he passed, Mr. Sharaf and Artesia Enterprises purchased the property and I started paying them rent and from there things went downhill drastically as far as it seems like maybe an atmosphere was created where the renters were just unbelievable. The upkeep of the property was just non-existent, you know there’s just so many businesses back there that are illegal, it killed my business. I had to move for short term gain from another renter and it’s just an atmosphere of anti-City, anti-business, the City had to come in and redo all the parking and cars just everywhere and nobody has a license and it’s amazing to even to think that you have to have a license when these guys are just doing business for years with no licenses, you know, no nothing and they don’t care. They’re just causing problems and everyone in the area knows what’s really going on there but you know, I can’t prove any of that. It’s just really an eyesore. Then Covid hit and you know all hell went to a whole another level.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Now, was there a point at which you no longer engaged in any auto sales whatsoever?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Well, immediately about the time he came in and the atmosphere started changing whereas you got guys selling cars in what used to be the Stater Brothers parking lot, on Virginia Avenue, fixing cars in the alleyway, uh, so it just became an environment where I could not conduct business the way I wanted. You know my customers would come in and they would be frightened to come back there and do business with me, so the atmosphere had changed so much that I had to do something that was more of a specialty where people kinda had no choice to do business with me if they needed the help. You know it wasn’t as much but it was what I needed to survive.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Now, I have shown up on the chart up on the wall there the timeline. Essentially right around 2016 as a period of beginning to not engage in auto sales.
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – That’s correct.
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Assistant City Attorney Campen – Is that accurate?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Definitely. About that time and for the next 3 or 4 years there were no sales. No auto sales whatsoever.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – During that time did you maintain any auto inventory?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Um, you know I had some stuff. I had some stuff like some rental car stuff but I would more or less sell those at the auction. I had some junk cars that I would part out but really, no inventory that I would consider as I was selling on the open market. Retailing.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Were you marketing yourself as auto sales during that period?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Yeah, I was still doing, I still had some customers that would call me to buy cars and I started to market myself more as a repair shop.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Now you indicated that, for how long would you say it was that you did not actively engage in car sales or did not sell any cars?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – I would say it was from about definitely 2016, well to me personally I felt like maybe 2015 to like maybe 2018-19. There were really no car sales for me.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Were you actively trying to sell cars or were you focusing on your repair business?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Well, like I said the atmosphere back there that was really, you know you got 4-5 different types of shops back there, you know selling cars and you got, it appeared to be 4-5 different shops but when you look at it, it seems like it was 20-30 people. You know I would see more cars move through there at night time than at the Cerritos Auto Square and I have quite a few years in the mainstream auto business and we didn’t move those kind of cars at nighttime so, that’s why the City you know had to more or less make all the changes in the area you know with all the parking enforcement would come over and threaten and you know it just turned into a really negative, unkempt, and then with it being so bad the homeless people would flood in and people would dump trash at night and there’s graffiti all because we didn’t keep the area up and me being there so long I felt like I was the Mayor. You know there was no intention to do anything but take advantage of the people that apparently didn’t speak English or had nowhere to go, and they’re
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actually good people…in the daytime and you know just make as much money as you can and that philosophy. It just put a bad taste in my mouth. For being around the City of Bellflower for so long and to see somebody come in there with no regard for the citizens the neighbors the rules and regulations set up by you guys and just do what they want to do.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Mr. Chambers, at some point after that 3-4- year gap did you sell any vehicles?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Yeah, if I sold something, it was more or less a personal vehicle or something that I could just move real fast and I would just more or less sell it to myself and use if for a while and then eventually get rid of it but nothing that I would consider that counted.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Did you ever sell any vehicles directly under your dealership license? After that 3-4-year gap, did you ever sell anything under your dealership license to someone that wasn’t yourself? Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Maybe but I can’t really recall. If I would sell something it would be something that like, I think I had a friend or two, or I had some cars down there, they were to me were junk and you know maybe somebody wanted it and I had to do it right, so maybe that happened but I can’t recall it.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Are you still at, are you still conducting business at the property?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – No I’m not.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – When did you leave the property? Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – I left the property October – September 9th.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Of this year?
Cornelius Chambers, Owner of Get Around Auto – Yes, uh-huh.
Assistant City Attorney Campen – Mr. Chambers that’s all the questions I have for this time