"The city stole my car"

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | November 10, 2004 | Tim Novak and Steve Warmbir

[montag813]

NOTE TO BLUE STATE RESIDENTS: PAY YOUR PARKING TICKETS AND STOP WHINING!

[paul51]

Of course, it may be that city officials get an undocumented 'cut' of the cars' resale value, but that wouldn't help the city's budget any

No doubt about what is going on here. The public 'servants' couldn't care less about the city budget. I'm sure the owner of the towing service and some of his contacts at the city are living large.

[paul51]

oops

[Valpal1]

This is SOP for towed vehicles in every town and city and state highway across the country.

If your car gets towed for any reason, you'd better be there in 24 hours to get it.

Chicago may be more corrupt in awarding contracts than other areas, but if you check with your local municipality you will find similar practices. Forewarned is forearmed.

[STARWISE]

Taken For a Ride

[Chewbacca]

If the car is stolen, was reported stolen, and the cops recover it, what gives them the right to sell the car without contacting the owner?

All they have to do is look up the VIN number or license plate?

[Gritty]

The city's towing system is all perfectly legal. The city has made it that way.

I think I'm beginning to understand why Chicago has such stringent gun-control laws....

[stylin19a]

Who owns the truck now? A recently retired city of Chicago tow-truck driver. He says he paid $12,000 for it.

Smith bought the pickup from a Wheeling car dealer on April Fools Day, 30 days before he retired from the city.

Asked about the deal, Smith changed his story several times on whether he knew the truck had been stolen.

"I didn't steal the truck," Smith said. "I bought it, legit."

"This is just a coincidence," Smith said about the purchase.

Of course the towing companies and the city do not have lists of cars towed and\or sold. He's just a lucky guy.

[feedback doctor]

A suggested letter to Hiz Onner,

"I just read in the Sun-Times your city's policy in regards to towed vehicles. Any representative of the people of Chicago that dies not fight tooth and nail to change such a disgraceful policy is worse than the scum on a shoe that has walked through a cow pasture. Where are you Mr. Mayor,? Does the shoe fit?"

[bigeasy_70118]

The takings clause doesn't apply in this case, as the owner of the vehicle had significant parking tickets, fees and fines. Thus the city was well within in its rights, pursuant to a city ordinance (presumably) to seize the vehicle. However, it is a gross violation of due process to sell the car, privately to a firm that contracts with the city, for less than the value of the fines and substantially less than the value of the car.

The purpose of seizing and selling the vehicle must be to satisfy the fines, not to punish the debtor or to enrich the contractor. Hence, the car should be sold at city auction with a mininum bid price and the debtor's note holder notified of the auction. Absent, these safeguards, I fail to see how this sale has been properly effected. A lawyer should not have much of problem getting this sale overturned at the appellate level. (I'll assume all traffic court judges in Chicago are hacks.)

Furthermore, it is outrageous that city would not accept $700 towards satisfying the $1000 debt. The fines are pulled essentially from thin air and any towing costs would have been more than offset by the $700.

The sad thing is even if this woman files bankruptcy, the debt on the vehicle will be discharged but her parking fines will not. Hey government, thanks for nothing!

[nygoose]

Lincoln Towing on Halstead Street used to be, and perhaps still is, the worst towing firm in this very corrupt city. Mayor Richie Daley is much more corrupt than his father, Richard J. Daley.

Citizens are scared to death of the tactics of these brutal politically "licensed" towing operations. Their employees are well armed and, in addition, are protected by attack dogs.

[ScuzzyTerminator]

...But for selling cars this cheaply, what the city government is doing is pure sadism.

The "government" is getting a lot of that money back. This is how the Chicago political machine funds itself.

[chaosagent]

"Suburban businessman Igor Pashin had his yellow pickup truck stolen just before Christmas. Chicago cops recovered it. But Pashin never saw it again. The city sold his 2-year-old truck in January to a politically connected towing firm with the exclusive contract for city towing -- for $125.54."

"The city sold a 2002 Chevy Silverado -- with a Blue Book value of at least $13,000 -- for $125.54 to the towing firm, Environmental Auto Removal."

"EAR then sold that same truck to a Wheeling car dealer for $4,000, the company says, well below the book value because the vehicle had been stolen and damaged. "

"Who owns the truck now? A recently retired city of Chicago tow-truck driver. He says he paid $12,000 for it. "

"Pashin, who runs a gutter cleaning business, is still paying on an $18,000 loan for the pickup truck, which now sits miles away in front of the Northwest Side home of Thomas B. Smith. Smith drove a tow truck for the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation for more than 25 years."

I don't understand why this guy is still paying on his loan. Since he had an $18,000 loan he obviously had insurance. It was stolen. The police recovered it but he never got it back.

Why didn't his insurance pay it off?

[Paul C. Jesup]

I already posted a follow-up on my first reply in post 24. You might want to read it.