Glendale to consider tow contract

Josh Kleinbaum

Good news for Glendale’s parking scofflaws: If your car gets towed, a

top-notch company will be doing the towing. It will just cost more

money to get the car back.

The Glendale City Council introduced an ordinance this week

requiring companies to compete for the city’s police towing contract.

The city will hire three companies based on a comprehensive review of

the companies’ trucks, facilities and track record. Each company will

be assigned a section of Glendale.

The council will vote on the ordinance next week.

The new policy will give all local tow companies the opportunity

to earn Glendale’s police towing. The same three companies --

Monterey Towing, Gay’s Automotive and Towing Service and Crescenta

Valley Towing -- have provided the bulk of the city’s towing services

since the late 1970s. The city uses a fourth company, Sunset Tow, for

heavy-duty towing.

“I hadn’t gotten any complaints at all about any of the existing

tow-truck drivers, but this is more of an issue of some people who

wanted to compete who felt they weren’t being allowed to compete,”

City Councilman Gus Gomez said. “Competition is the best thing.”

The council also added an $83 fee for administrative services for

any car impounded, an effort to recover some of the funds the city is

paying to administer the program. The city will lower its release fee

from $28 to $6, so the price of towing increases only by $61.

The issue arose about four years ago, when Sunset Tow approached

the city about getting a share of the police towing jobs, Glendale

Police Lt. Don Meredith said. Sunset co-owner Mike Vickstein said

Glendale had a “good ol’ boy” system for its towing, and he asked the

city to reconsider.

The council discussed adopting a new system in October 2002, but

tow operators complained about several stipulations, including a

requirement to tow city vehicles for free. The council asked staff to

rework the system based on input from the towing companies, and spent

the past 16 months working on the current proposal.

Now, Glendale’s towing will be awarded on merits. The city manager

will appoint a panel to judge applicants based on a set of

guidelines.

David Gerard, owner of Gerard and Peterson Towing, which has

contracts with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the

California Highway Patrol and the city of Burbank, said Glendale’s

new system is the best he has seen.

“This is the most intense, comprehensive and thorough proposal

that I’ve ever laid my eyes on,” Gerard said. “This proposal is very,

very, very good.”

Gerard and others liked the new system because of the exhaustive

selection process for choosing companies, which they believe will

bring Glendale top-notch towing companies.

Only one area of the new agreement drew any criticism at Tuesday’s

council meeting. Under the new system, prospective tow companies’

lots must be located within one mile of the city limit and three

miles of their towing district.

“The main office for a tow company towing for the city of Glendale

should stay in the city of Glendale, instead of having to

inconvenience the public to go to another city to pick up their car

and pay charges,” said Carvel Gay, owner of Gay’s Automotive and

Towing.

City officials said the allowance is necessary because companies

might have to acquire new lots to handle the city’s police contract,

and land with the appropriate zoning within the city limits is rare.