Ok – so when cars on Willy Street are towed because they parked in the overflow lane the city tows their car around the block. Yesterday, my car was towed (long story) and they towed it 1.5 miles from Wilson St. by the Municipal Building to Park St. & W. Wash. Is that normal? And where did the city tow my car?
WHAT DID KONKEL DO WRONG?
When I drove up this parking spot, there was one of those bright green signs on the post with the parking space number. It wasn’t strapped down like shown in this picture, it was more on the east side of the post and the sign was perpendicular to the street. Due to the placement of the sign and the fact that I often park here and in the past the parking restriction was for only one spot, not two, I thought it was ok to park there.
To reiterate – the sign was not ziptied to the post as in this picture, the sign was turned at a 90 degree angle and made it appear that the sign only applied to space 6053.
I have to say, I get my fair share of parking tickets that I pay without complaint when I know I was wrong. I honestly didn’t know that I was parking illegally. And if I had gotten a ticket I probably would have just paid it without complaint and chalked it up as a misunderstanding. But, with $95 worth of tickets and a waste of about an hour of my time, well, I’m not feeling so generous.
And, usually when they do this they put those little yellow hats over the parking spot numbers. Which would have made it obvious which parking spots the sign was referring to.
WHY DID THE PARKING MACHINE TAKE MY MONEY?
I have misread signs before and usually when you go to the parking meter and type in the space it tells you that you are doing something stupid. But the parking meter machine took my money and spit out a ticket. Perhaps they don’t make those adjustments for temporary signs?
WHERE DID THE CITY TOW MY CAR?
When I went to look for my car I found this – and so I called the police non-emergency number.
The first time I called I got a woman. When I said that I thought my car had been towed she asked me “was it parked by the Hilton?” Which I found very, very strange. I can’t be the only car that had just been towed, how did she know? I said yes. I asked her to tell me where it was towed to. I honestly expect it to be 3-6 blocks away because it’s hard to find parking spaces. When she said the 800 block of W. Washington I was stunned. I asked her to repeat it. Then I said, “that can’t be right”. And then I got a little heated. She said she was just doing her job and I agreed and said sorry and I tried to ask her a question and she hung up on me. Not one of my finest moments, but it truly was only a little heated, it could have been much, much worse.
I took a few deep breaths and started walking. I figured I could try to figure out how to catch a bus, but I had no cash (except for the change in my car) and the ATM would give me money incompatible with paying to ride the bus, so then I’d have to buy something to have change and that all sounded like a pain. I could have caught a cab, but . . . I didn’t want to add that expense to the $90, er $95 I was going to have to pay for the ticket and towing. I figured I could use the walk to cool off. I walked about two blocks and stopped. I still didn’t believe the car would be parked that far away. I google mapped it and I thought my phone said 1.5 miles, but it was 1.3 according to my computer at home. I didn’t look at the options for walking or how long it would take, I might have changed my mind! I took the route in blue because it was better lit. It didn’t take me 28 minutes to walk there, it was less than that.
At this point my phone died. Of course. I stopped by a bench, pulled out the battery pack and questioned again that they would really tow my car that far away. So I decided to call back.
ROUND TWO, WHERE DID THE CITY TOW MY CAR?
I was calmer this time and asked the guy to double check, was my car really a mile and a half away on the 800 block of W. Washington? He confirmed. I asked if there was someone I could talk to about this. I asked who the Officer in Charge (OIC) was for the Central District. He said no one was assigned to be the OIC. That sounded screwy to me. Then he asked if I wanted the parking number. I asked if they were open. He said yes and gave me 266-4622. I called the number. The message gave me a different number to call. 266-4170. I called that number and the message told me to call Schmidt’s Auto. I never reached a human. Grrrr. I started walking.
UH, WHERE IS MY CAR?
I used the time to call someone who I needed to speak with and walked. When I got to Brittingham Park I had walked by an large area of the street where no cars were parked.
and I didn’t recognize any of the cars across the street as being mine. I started to worry my car wasn’t really on the 800 block of W. Washington Ave. They didn’t really say where on the 800 block and its a REALLY BIG block!
Then I realized there was one car parked way down at the end by Park Street.
They literally parked my car in the very last spot on W. Washington Ave before the bus stop by Park Street, even tho there was PLENTY of spaces closer where it could have been dropped off.
I RETURNED TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
Still a bit bewildered, I went back to try to figure out what happened. When I got back, there were more cars parked where I had gotten towed. And they weren’t getting towed.
I looked at the sign again. Ahem, the sign that was now nicely fastened to the post in a way that indicated that it was intended for both of the spots.
I had actually assumed that it was the construction people that had the space but it was the Hilton. So, I had nothing to lose and had cooled off and I walked over there to find out what was up.
DID YOU CALL TO GET MY CAR TOWED?
There was a line at the front desk so I asked the bartender, she sent me to the front desk. The front desk sent me to the valet. I smiled, laughed, and said “I have a bit of a crazy question to ask you”. I asked if they had my car towed from the spot across the street. He says that he got there at 3:30 and he hadn’t called to have any cars towed, but maybe someone did earlier that morning. He said the space was for a basketball team that had gotten here earlier in the day.
Now here’s the thing. Normally you have to work really hard to get these temporary signs enforced and it takes hours to get a response. And they only enforce them if the person who got the temporary sign calls them.
I must have had a strange look on my face. He said that normally they enforce pretty heavily in this area.
Now here’s the thing. Normally by 5:00 you can’t find a parking enforcement officer, the day shift has gone home and they have a skeleton crew.
The story didn’t really seem to be adding up to me.
IS IT JUST ME? OR IS THIS NORMAL?
So even tho I was a little suspicious after this incident that happened just around the corner from this one, and which I successfully fought less than three months ago. (Got ticketed for a spot I had paid for and got a second unusual ticket that no other parking enforcement had given me in the three years I was in violation – I didn’t even know it was a violation to not remove the 2 hour parking stickers from your car) and even tho my husband says “face it, they hate you”, which is probably true, I don’t think it was just me! (Now that’s a classic Konkel run on sentence!) I think it turns out this is a common practice?
According to my facebook friends, I am not alone!
One person said her car was towed there from . . .E Johnson St to the same area by Brittingham Park!
Then another person chimed in and said it happened to them too.
And another.
And another.
And another with a car that was towed to the exact same location.
HOW DO WE CHANGE THIS?
Honestly, this just seems cruel. I’m not sure if this is a policy, or if its intentional. Or, if anyone has even thought about it?
I remember debates about towing companies from when I was on the council and its was never pretty. But, it got me wondering, when is the contract up and what does the contract say? I emailed the Walking City Encyclopedia Mike Verveer thinking he would just tell me he pointed me to this with this. Turns out is it a 5 year contract (because the council doesn’t want to go through the hell of debating it too often I’m sure) with two optional one-year renewals. He also said that he doesn’t recall seeing any policies about towing and referred me to staff who might have them.
TRANSPARENCY AND PUBLIC INPUT PLEASE
Well crap, but we are in the last year of the 5 year contract, if staff doesn’t renew it for two more years, the decision is an internal staff decision and the council (and therefore the public) doesn’t have any say in if the contract is renewed.
The council also gave away their power to negotiate the terms of the contract. That was left up to staff, so the public doesn’t really get any input when the alders don’t.
This means there is no contract that was put in legistar that I can look at. I don’t know if they have any standards about how far cars get towed. I always thought they found the nearest reasonable place to tow it to – I guess because that was my experience on Willy St. I guess I was WAY wrong!!!
Here’s the language of the resolution, which is quite short and sweet:
WHEREAS, the City utiliizes a new city-wide towing contract to provide towing and related services for City departments that include Madison Police Department (MPD), Fleet Services and Metro Transit; and
WHEREAS, Purchasing Services, on behalf of the MPD, Fleet Services and Metro Transit departments, solicited competitive proposals under RFP 8431-0-2015-BP, Towing Services; and
WHEREAS, an evaluation team consisting of staff from Metro Transit, the Traffic Enforcement Section of MPD and Fleet Services conducted a detailed evaluation, scored each of the proposals using criteria that included cost, qualifications, experience, capability, storage facilites, equipment and references.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Mayor and City Clerk are hereby authorized to enter into and sign a contract with Schmidt’s Auto, Inc. on behalf of the City for towing and vehicle storage services, as nogotiated by Purchasing Services, for an initial term of five years with two optional one-year renewal extensions.The one-year extensions can be signed by the Finance Director or the designee.
POLICY CHANGE PLEASE!
One of the people who posted on my facebook page said that she has disabled plates on her car and they towed her car 9 blocks. I sucked it up and walked after doing a little swearing – but not everyone can. And not everyone can afford to call a taxi if the buses aren’t running. I think there are some real issues – beyond my particular situation – that should be addressed.
And, perhaps they could work on the customer service end of things just a tad? Particularly the run around with the different phone numbers they tell you to call which is a wild goose chase.
