This letter is in response to Mr. Hischke’s letter on Oct. 30. We wanted to repeat some of the facts that were in the March 20 article in the Craig Daily Press about the closing.

1. We did not own the building. The owners of the building would not renew our lease and decided to sell the building. Their price on the building, in its present condition, didn’t make sense to us financially. Apparently, it has not made sense to anybody else as the building has not sold, and is currently in foreclosure.
2. We were concerned that if somebody else bought the building we could be “homeless.” There were not any other buildings in Craig that were suitable.
3. We tried to move Ford in with Chevrolet. Neither factory would approve it. Ford mentioned that they were trying to reduce their dealer count, and would essentially buy the franchise back from us.

At that point we didn’t really see any other practical option, other than selling the dealership back to Ford. Ford wouldn’t approve any other alternative. We moved every Ford employee over to our Chevrolet location except one person. At this time, every one of the Ford employees are still working at the Chevrolet location, except for one person, due to health reasons. 

We do feel bad that we can’t do Ford warranty/service contract work at Chevrolet on Mr. Hischke’s vehicle, or our other Ford customers. We apologize for that to our good Ford customers. We do have Ford factory trained techs to do other Ford work, though. We had no intention of closing Ford until we could no longer see a way to stay open. The world is changing.

Thanks to all of our Cook customers that have been doing business with us for over 60 years, that have allowed us to support the communities they live in. 

Scott Cook and the staff of Cook Chevrolet