Thomas MacMillan Photo
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Bill author Blango.
You can let your unpaid parking tickets stack up to $200 before you need to worry that your car will be booted. But get behind on your taxes by only $100, and someone can tow your car right out of your driveway.
Charles Blango wants to change all that.
Charles Blango (pictured), a former Newhallville alderman, has submitted a request that the city raise the towing threshold for taxes to $200 and prohibit towers from entering private property to take cars.
City parking director Jim Travers argued that the current system is fair and reasonable.
The matter has been sent to the Board of Aldermen’s Public Safety Committee for a public hearing.
Under the city’s current laws, cars can be booted or towed for $200 or more in unpaid parking tickets or $100 or more in unpaid taxes. Towers are allowed to go onto private property to boot or tow for taxes but not for tickets.
Blango said he was moved to submit his request to change that system after hearing repeated stories of towing trouble. He said an elderly woman told him that her car was towed while she was at church. She owed just $105 dollars in unpaid taxes, he said.
Blango said the woman wants to remain anonymous but that many people will testify at the public hearing about his request. “When testimonial time comes you will hear some of them stories.”
The cars being towed are “mostly in the urban city,” Blango said.
He said he was also motivated by the news of a woman claiming a Crown Towing driver had swindled her out of $158 that she owed in taxes. Crown denies the charge.
“It’s just not right,” Blango said. “You have to deal with people with respect.”
With a 96 or 98 percent tax collection rate, there’s no need for the city to be so aggressive going after people who owe, Blango said. The towing threshold should be raised to $200, he said.
And the city should not allow towers to go on private property to take cars, Blango said.
“I just think when you’re at your residence and you have a “No Trespassing” sign … No trespassing means no trespassing,” Blango said. “It’s really like an invasion of privacy.”
The state does not require cities to have a minimum threshold for towing for unpaid taxes, said Travers, head of traffic and parking. By city ordinance, the city set a $200 threshold for unpaid parking tickets. Cars can be booted or towed if their owners exceed that threshold.
The city’s aim is to set a threshold that’s high enough to be reasonable but low enough that people will get a wake-up call before their debt gets unmanageable. He said $200 strikes that balance when it comes to unpaid tickets.
“I think that is the correct number to go after,” Travers said. “It helps someone before they get too far in debt.”
For unpaid taxes, however, $100 is the appropriate number, Travers said. More so than revenue from parking tickets, tax revenue is written into the city budget as a set amount of money the city expects to receive to pay for the things that keep it running.
“We rely in running the city on the collection of taxes that are due,” he said.
The towing threshold for taxes used to $35, which was too low, Travers said.
People can look on city websites to see if they owe money for tickets or for taxes, he said.
As for going onto private property, Travers said that the city does not allow towers to enter private property for unpaid traffic tickets. “But by state ordinance the tax collector is allowed to go on private property to claim the car,” he said. “It’s like if your car is being repossessed. The repo guy can go on your private property to claim your car.”
Seems to me like those two figures should be flipped: you can get towed for $100 in parking fines, $200 for taxes. There is also an inherent bias in the enforcement of this rule against people who park on the street or don't have garages to park in -- their cars can be seen and towed far more easily. Not sure that's a critical point, but it seems likely that the burden of enforcement will fall primarily on those who live downtown or in apartments/rentals.