Bellflower : Consultant Fails to Get New Auto Dealer; Contract Cut

With the old Pete Ellis Ford site still empty, Bellflower has severed its relationship with the Newport Beach auto consultant it retained in January to find a new tenant.

Linda Lowry, assistant city administrator and finance director, said the city paid consultant Joe Cefaratti a total of $20,000 and terminated his contract because it ran out of economic development funds for consultant services.

“We spent it all,” she said. “There was nothing we could say he had accomplished--there was no dealership there.”

Cefaratti said he submitted a final bill of $12,000, which the city told him it was unable to pay. At the same time, he said he has “no hard feelings” and is continuing efforts to find a dealer to replace Ellis Ford, which closed last June. “I’m not the kind who just walks away. I can get those deals done,” he said.

Earlier, a Wisconsin auto dealer was lined up to take over the site, but the deal fell through. Bellflower lost $400,000 in annual sales tax in 1991 when both Ellis and neighboring Carmen Koosa Toyota went out of business.