- Criminals should be on the hook for towing costs, not taxpayers
If you start with the entirely reasonable premise that Morgan Hill should recover 100 percent of the cost of towing vehicles for suspected criminals, then it’s hard to understand why Morgan Hill City Council rejected the franchise towing plan carefully crafted by Morgan Hill Police Department Cmdr. Joe Sampson.
The city incurs two kinds of expenses related to towing the cars of people cited for driving without a license, driving under the influence, and similar crimes where police cannot allow individuals to continue to have access to a vehicle: direct towing costs and administrative costs.
The council did raise towing fees 157 percent, from $101 to $164, to cover all of its towing costs. We applaud that decision.Â
- Tow companies higher priority than taxpayers
The franchise tow proposal that they rejected, however, would have covered the administrative costs that the city incurs to manage the towing program. The city must ensure that the towing companies with which it contracts meet certain standards and distribute calls for service fairly, for example.
Under Sampson’s franchise towing proposal, towing companies that contract with the city would have paid a one-time application fee and a $60 per tow fee. Those fees would cover the city’s administrative costs for the tow program. Towing companies could pass those costs to the owners of the vehicles they tow.
After vociferous objection by two towing company operators, Dion Bracco and Gary Ponzini, council members Marby Lee and Greg Sellers voted to reject the franchise towing proposal. Because Councilman Mark Grzan abstained – and we’d like a clearer explanation for that decision – the proposal did not have the required three votes for approval.
- Wrong message at the wrong time
With this vote, the council decided that Morgan Hill taxpayers ought to cover the cost of towing the vehicles of drunk and unlicensed drivers, not the cited drivers themselves. They’ve decided that pleasing a few towing company operators is a higher priority than pleasing tens of thousands of taxpayers.
Given that the city is trying to find ways to raise revenue (increase taxes) or cut costs (reduce services) to pay for increased police services, this is not the message that elected officials ought to be sending to taxpayers, especially so soon after it hastily dismissed studying the possibility of outsourcing dispatch services as a moneysaving tactic.
We urge council members to reconsider the franchise towing proposal, and soon, or consider another alternative that promises 100 percent coverage of costs: City-operated towing in which the city passes every cent of the cost of the program directly to violators, bypassing the middleman towing companies entirely.
The latter proposal might make towing company operators suddenly fond of a franchise towing program.
Either way, it shouldn’t be taxpayers who are forced to pay the cost – any portion of it – of towing the vehicles of suspected criminals. And that’s what’s happening now.
ACT NOW
Contact the Morgan Hill City Council at www.morganhill.ca.gov or (408) 779-7259.
