New $500 city impound fee prompts more than half to abandon their towed vehicles

CEDAR RAPIDS - Darren Mickens might only be 22, but he's seen plenty, what with a 15-month stint with the U.S. Army in central Iraq from January 2007 through March 2008.

His education continues - as a full-time liberal arts student at Kirkwood Community College and a part-time employee in the meat department at a Hy-Vee Food Store, and on the streets of Cedar Rapids, too.

For the Linn-Mar High School graduate, the streets turned tough recently when a Cedar Rapids police officer pulled over his 2002 blue Ford Taurus with 94,000-plus miles. A few things turned out not to be in order: his vehicle license sticker had expired; unbeknown to him, his driver's license was suspended for failing to pay an old traffic ticket; and he didn't have proof of insurance on him.

He was cited, taken to the Linn County Jail for processing and released. Meanwhile, his well-worn car was towed to an impound lot on 76th Avenue SW.

Getting the car back nearly sent Mickens to the poor house.

Many others in similar shoes haven't had the money to get their cars back.

Mickens is one of 769 vehicle owners as of late last week who have been confronted since mid-November with the Cedar Rapids Police Department's new $500 civil impoundment penalty fee imposed on people who have their vehicles towed for violations as common as driving without insurance or without a legal license.

For Mickens, the total cost for his traffic stop has neared $1,000: $45 for the tow; $50 for impound-lot storage fees; the $500 Police Department civil impoundment penalty fee; an additional $60 Police Department surcharge to cover police officer costs related to the traffic stop; plus court costs related to his citations.

“I was blown away,” Mickens says when he learned about the $500 impoundment fee. “That's a month's rent and a month's food, and going to school and having only a part-time job, it's a pretty big hit.”

Maybe a $100 impoundment fee the first time might help get the point across, Mickens suggests. But $500? “It's killing us, he says.

Police Sgt. Joe Clark, who is overseeing the Police Department's impoundment fee program, says the program is intended to sting a bit so a motorist thinks twice about driving with a suspended or revoked license or no insurance or using a vehicle for drug dealing or other offenses.

Clark notes that those with suspended driver's licenses can routinely get picked up, get fined, ignore the fine and then go back to driving again.

“That's the problem, we have so many of those violations,” he says.

At the same time, Clark understands that the $500 impoundment fee has a way of hitting a strata of residents who not only can't pay such a fee, but who have been driving a vehicle not worth paying $500 to reclaim. As a result, many abandon the vehicle, which in some instances, is the key to getting the person to work or to school and moving up the economic ladder.

Even without the new $500 fee, Clark surprisingly says about one-third of vehicles towed on a police case have not been reclaimed. With the fee, he expected the percent of unclaimed vehicles to jump to 50 percent, and as of last week, the percentage was a little higher than that.

Of 769 vehicles towed between the start of the program Nov. 17 and last Wednesday and subject to the $500 civil impoundment fee, only about 275 had been claimed and the fee paid. Another 75 were released without the fee when the owner obtained insurance. The fee is set aside once if an owner gets insurance.

To date, Clark estimates that the department has taken in $122,000 via the impoundment fee in about four months.

Out at the impoundment lot at Pro Tow, which is under contract by the city of Cedar Rapids to handle the city's towing, Joel Philipp, the company's general manager, says his firm has seen “a drastic change” since the city imposed the new $500 fee. Fewer cars are reclaimed, he says.

At least two people, he says, actually had been living in their cars.

Most who do reclaim vehicles do it pretty quickly, so the $10-a-day storage costs don't mount up in addition to the $45 tow fee, the $500 Police Department civil impoundment penalty fee and the $60 departmental surcharge.

After about two-week process set out in state law, Pro Tow can strip vehicles of aluminum and copper, crush them and send them to a salvage yard, which pays the firm about $150 a vehicle on average, Philipp says.

Just last week, Pro Tow held its first auctions of impoundment-fee vehicles - of the 55 listed for auction, only 11 were newer than 1999 models. All sold, most for hundreds of dollars. Under state law, Pro Tow can keep up to $270 for tow and storage fees with the rest going to the state of Iowa.

For Darren Mickens, the $500 impoundment fee and the $60 police surcharge are a sign of a city government and Police Department employees trying to protect their own standard of living with fees of their choosing and size.

“I think they're just trying to get where they can even if it includes running over people,” he says.

For him, the impoundment penalty and other fees paid in February will be chasing him for the rest of the year as he tries to pay rent, eat, pay school costs and buy gasoline for his car.

“It could put some really bad nerves on me,” he says.