‘Mile of Cars’ Gives National City Its Image--and Revenue to Prosper

If National City were a thing instead of a place, it would be an automobile, a shined-up, tuned-up used car. A Buick or a Chevy. Certainly not an import. A sturdy transportation car with seat covers over the worn spots on the upholstery. Sitting in the second row of a first-rate car lot along the Mile of Cars.

If National City were a person instead of a place, it certainly would be Mayor Kile Morgan, an extroverted, ex-used car salesman who has turned his city into a tax-rich haven for enterprises nobody else wanted. He is a walking-around personification of the city, a bit out of date, a little short in environmental sensitivity, willing to opt for fewer frills and less foliage to make room for more business and more jobs.

Morgan sells his community with the same pitch he used in selling the Detroit-made beauties during World War II at Kile Morgan’s Better Used Cars on what is now National City’s tax bonanza--the Mile of Cars.

Much of National City’s sales tax income and a lot of its problems stem from the automobile. The Mile of Cars, which now stretches nearly a mile and a half along National City Boulevard, yields much of the $8 million in annual sales tax revenues the city receives.

“Look at that!” Morgan said, pointing to the awesome display of glitter and chrome. “Isn’t that grand?”

The mayor, who talks in exclamation points and thinks in dollar signs, considers the Mile of Cars his first major victory against the forces that were pushing the depressed community into red ink when he was first elected mayor 20 years ago.

With $10 million in urban renewal funds--Morgan eschews the more popular euphemisms for the federal aid--the mayor used the first years of his 20-year reign to widen, repave and redevelop block after block of the north-south artery, turning it into a tire-kicker’s paradise.

There are those who argue that the old National Avenue, with its narrow roadway but wide, tree-shaded sidewalks, was better than the present automobile row. But Morgan had a reason for his federally-financed face lift. When he entered office, the city was darn near broke.

“When I came in here, this town was down on its knees,” Morgan said. “When I became mayor in ‘66, we had the lowest paid help around and no money to pay them. I had to call Sacramento and get (state Sen.) Wadie Deddeh and have him send down a government check (owed to the city) by special delivery. That was a Friday morning and we went down and met the plane and came back and deposited the check in the bank. Then we could write city (payroll) checks. It was that close.”

So Morgan sacrificed a few shade trees and several historical buildings to build his mile-long car lot.

“We gave ‘em a home,” the blunt-spoken city official said of the county’s new and used car dealers. “That place was a mess. Just a mess. Junkyards, empty buildings. We filled it in, tore stuff down, put in sidewalks, widened the street.”

The automobile row has spawned a litter of satellite enterprises. Muffler shops, gas stations, mechanics, car washes, auto parts stores, do-it-yourself tool rentals, battery shops, customizing and paint shops, radio-stereo installers and tire stores dominate National City.

“That’s money in the bank!” Morgan said, gesturing toward the automotive businesses. And he means it literally. When the city finishes the second Morgan Tower high-rise--subsidized rental units for the elderly named after the mayor who got them built--National City will pay cash for its $5 million share of the $8 million building and still have a comfortable $6 million reserve in the bank, thanks in large part to the Mile of Cars.

But cars--the souped-up, decked-out, low-rider kind, anyway--cause eruptions of the simmering racial tension between the town’s Latino youth and its police force. Every so often the police pounce on the car buffs and put a stop to the time-honored tradition of “cruising” down Highland Avenue on Friday and Saturday nights. According to National City police, the low-rider clubs are gangs that sometimes add to the city’s unfavorable crime statistics by staging fights, break-ins, knifings and other violent crimes.

Cars are the cause of yet another smudge on National City’s image--a statewide crackdown on smog-control certificate counterfeiting showed 10 of 12 San Diego County firms caught in the felony scam were located along National City’s Mile of Cars. Traffic generated elsewhere and going elsewhere has turned some National City streets into noisy, smelly gasoline alleys--a fact that whips Morgan into a characteristic tantrum over the insensitivity of neighboring San Diego city officials.

“They dump their traffic on us when they have a freeway route right there, ready to go!” Morgan said, referring to an east-west strip once designated as California 252 along National City’s northern border. The eight-lane highway was erased from state highway plans in 1978 after the San Diego City Council responded to Southeast San Diegans’ complaints that their neighborhoods were being imprisoned in a wall of concrete freeways.

At one point, the freeway advocates thought that they had a deal--construction of State 252 in return for allowing a trash-to-energy generating plant to be built on Navy lands along the bay--but San Diego political clout vetoed the compromise and the Sander plant was moved to a tract in Kearny Mesa, where it is again threatening to stir up a political tornado.

The battle continues, with Morgan still at the helm of a coalition that seeks to turn the desolate swath of barren terrain into an access road to the dozens of high-employment industries along the bay.

South of National City, pylons and jackhammers signal a more successful conclusion to the area’s traffic congestion. California 54 will snake up the Sweetwater Valley east from Interstate 5 to link up with Interstate 805. When that link is completed, State 54 will provide a direct route from the bayfront to Plaza Bonita, a $100 million regional shopping center Morgan and National City snatched from neighboring Chula Vista with astute political maneuvering and “a lot of hard work,” Morgan said.

Much to the surprise and disbelief of friend and foe, Morgan announced last month he will retire from politics in November. In a rare press conference called to announce the event, Morgan was at his irascible best, claiming that he had “done everything I thought I could do, and more,” during his 26 years in city office.

“The only defeat I ever had was in ’72 when I ran for supervisor and got beat by Jack Walsh. I should thank him for that. I’m awful glad he won, because I really couldn’t have done the things that I have done right here in National City.”

Morgan does feel a twinge or two of regret about stepping down on the eve of National City’s 100th birthday in 1987. He’s the type that is right at home speechifying and leading parades.

But, although he is sure “the 54,000 good people in National City, God bless them,” would elect him for another four years, he’s not going to run.

“I’m tired,” he explained. “I want to lean back and relax. Let somebody else take over. And this is a great time to go. This city is in the best financial shape ever.”