The Gary Common Council may give final approval next week to a revised city towing ordinance, with one councilman saying he hopes to reduce the rate.
Gary police do not handle their own tows of vehicles, but instead contract out to various local towing companies to handle such business. Those companies follow an ordinance that in recent years has undergone several revisions – most recently in November 2017.
The most recent revision has caused concern among some towing companies, largely because they object to provisions that require them to give a portion of the fee they collect to the city.
Councilman Herb Smith, D-At large, who chairs the council’s Towing Committee, said he’d like to take the ordinance’s provisions back to what existed in 2012, largely because he said those provisions worked without upsetting the towing companies.
Smith said he wants his ordinance, which has been the subject of discussion and debate for several months, to come up for a final vote when the Common Council meets again April 17.
Under the procedures in use today, a person whose car is towed must first go to the Gary Police Department and pay a $50 fee for a release form – which is then taken to the towing company. The tow operators then charge a $150 fee, of which $40 is paid to the city. That fee is a slight reduction from $175 that previously was being considered.
Smith said he’d like to see the release form fee reduced to $25.
City officials have said that when it comes to cars towed by the police, some 60 percent of the vehicles are never claimed by their owners. Smith said he thinks it’s because the process sets up too high a fee, and he thinks Gary ultimately would receive more money if it charged less.
“We would get more money if 50 people each paid $25, rather than 3 people paying $50,” Smith said.
James Meyer, an attorney for Republic Frame and Axle, said the towing companies would prefer if the city figured out a means by which it collected its own share of the proceeds, thereby leaving the tow fees for the tow companies.
“This way, there’d be no doubt about the city getting its money,” Meyer said.
Councilwoman Rebecca Wyatt, D-1st, agreed with Meyer.
“Why doesn’t the city just collect the fees in the first place,” she said, adding she thinks the $50 release fee is an appropriate amount.
However, Gary city attorney Rodney Pol said such a plan is not legally viable because the towing companies, not the police or the city, have possession of the confiscated vehicles.
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Gregory Tejeda is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.