As a result of a revised Tow Service Agreement (TSA) reached between the city and tow truck companies, plans for a city-owned-and-operated impound lot have been scrapped.
The compromise came as a relief to tow yard owners and truck operators, who feared that the proposed project would have cost them 80 percent of their business.
Approved by the City Council on June 16, the new agreement was reached after the seven tow companies that handle impounds for the city agreed to junk or part out any car worth $500 or less, instead of putting them up for lien auction.
In Santa Maria, vehicles can be impounded for 30 days for a variety of reasons, including driving without a license of if the car is wanted in relation to a hit-and-run incident. Impounded cars are towed away and housed by one of the local companies, determined on a rotating basis by the police department.
According to the city, more than 1,200 cars of unlicensed drivers have been 30-day impounded since last October. The retrieval costs for impounded vehicles can often be as high as $1,500. If a city-owned lot had gone through as planned, the city would have collected the revenue from the release of impounded cars.
According to City Manager Tim Ness, the city never intended to make money off the proposed lot.
“The major reason for the city expressing interest in building its own impound yard was to break that cycle of very inexpensive cars being recycled back onto the streets,” Ness said. “We wanted to get rid of these cars.”
In addition, the revised agreement requires all owners of impounded vehicles to show proof of license and registration at the time of pickup. The previous TSA had no such provision.
“What we’re doing is forcing people to register these vehicles at the DMV,” Ness said.
The agreement will be effective for one year, and Ness said it frees up $1.5 million in the budget that would have gone toward the impound lot project. That money will now go toward the construction of a fire station in Preisker Park.
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 2, 2009.