On June 4, 2025, the Phoenix Public Safety Subcommittee, chaired by Councilman Robinson, met to discuss several public safety topics including a towing services procurement update, park safety initiatives, a trails and heat safety program, e-bike and e-scooter regulations, a new memorandum of understanding with the Arizona Department of Public Safety for critical incident investigations, and a police hiring and attrition update. The meeting also included public comments on park safety, e-bike trespassing, and fire department response times.
I'm incredibly fortunate to serve as mayor of Phoenix, a city filled with extraordinary people on the rise, brilliant doctors and researchers, spirited small business owners, dedicated teachers and public servants, hard working apprentices, the happiest kids, warm families. I always enjoy preparing for this event. A global pandemic, a recession, then a booming recovery. And today, once again, we're living in ever changing times. We're seeing more chaos and confusion coming from our government in Washington than ever before. Markets swing with every whim, and that constant uncertainty. And I believe you're also bringing Court Hood, newly promoted administrator in the Phoenix Police Department. So Court, congratulations for that. You're going to give us an overview of the upcoming procurement process for the towing service contracts. So the floor is yours. Good morning. My name is Austin Soldano. I'm a deputy finance director with the city's finance department overseeing our central procurement division. Good morning, Chairman Robinson, members of the subcommittee. Thank you for having us here this morning. We are here to provide a procurement update for general police towing services. That's going to entail an overview of the services and our current contracts, as well as a recommended path forward for a proposed solicitation. And I am joined here this morning in partnership with the police department with police administrator Court Hood. The topics to be covered in this morning's presentation include a background of the general police towing services, uh history and background of the police department's vehicle impound unit, an overview of the towing zones and applicable precincts, our current city contracts for general police towing services, and our recommendation for the upcoming solicitation. General Police Towing Services essentially entail law enforcement involved impounds that includes citizens involved with accidents, illegally parked or abandoned vehicles, and other law enforcement impounds, including a collection of evidence or removal of vehicles from crime scenes. There is a timeliness component with these services. Um by the city's towing program. That towing program uh includes oversight and administration and enforcement of the city's towing agreements, and from those agreements, the city recoupes funds by way of statutorily governed administrative fees related to tows, as well as a share of auction proceeds for reference in fiscal year 23-24. The city recouped over 1.6 million dollars in funds. And while fiscal year 2425 is not yet completed, we have also exceeded 1.6 million dollars this fiscal year. The impound unit includes 16 positions tasked with monitoring and auditing the city's towing agreements. The job duties for those positions include scope of work compliance, financial and data auditing, impound account review, customer assistance, and lot inspections. Now here are the towing zones and the applicable precincts. I apologize. The map is a little bit small, so I will walk through each zone. They're lettered A, B, C, and D, and I'll also name the applicable precinct and point out by color on the map on the presentation where each of those are. And zone D, which is in pink at the bottom, includes the South Mountain Precinct and Central City Precinct. The city's current general police towing services agreements are monitored by the police department's vehicle impound unit and administered by the finance department through the central procurement division. There are four contracts total, um, and they are covering each of the four towing zones. So one contract per towing zone A, B, C, and D. Presently we have three vendors. One of those vendors covers two of the zones, and the two other vendors each cover one zone. Um, those contracts are set to expire December 31st, 2026. Hence our reason coming before you today. We still have ample time to do a new solicitation and get new contracts up and running, but it is critical that we do so to allow for no overlap or allow those contracts to expire before new contracts are in place. Which brings us to our staff recommendation, which is to do a request for proposal to be issued by the Central Procurement Division on behalf of the police department. These new contracts, as I said before, would be needed before the expirations on December 31st, 2026. So the plan of action would be to have new contracts in place beginning January 1st, 2027 for a five-year term through December 31st, 2031, with five one-year options to extend. And for a general overview of timeline, the uninterrupted current schedule allows for approximately six months. So if we were to issue the solicitation in June 2025, our target council date would be December of 2025. That one year buffer allows for any delays to the solicitation process and allows for a transition period should should new vendors be brought on for towing contracts. The proposed evaluation criteria, I would point out that this is not finalized at this point, but the current proposed criteria, the capacity and experience of the offerer, cost, and method of approach. In conclusion, staff is requesting this subcommittee for approval of the recommendation to proceed with a request for proposal for general police towing services to cover the four towing zones. We thank you for your time this morning. Thank you, Chairman Robinson, members of the subcommittee, and we would be happy to take any questions that you may have.