10th City of Twalton uh council work session.

Uh we start up the session tonight with uh private property impound rates discussion uh led by Don Hudson, our finance director, and William Sullivan, who were is a management analyst here in the city.

Welcome to you both.

Thank you, Mayor Bubinick, members of the council.

My name is Don Hudson.

I'm the assistant city manager and finance director here with the city, and with me this evening is our management analyst in finance, William Sullivan.

So back in October of 2013, council adopted TMC 8-5, towing from private property, which requires tow companies to get a license to be able to tow off a private property and follow certain rules.

Uh in addition, there are maximum rates that they can charge the vehicle owners for any vehicles that are towed.

Those rates have not been updated since the ordinance went into effect in 2013.

Back this last summer, we received a letter from Beaverton Towing asking to review the rates because they have not been changed.

That letter is attached for your review.

Back on September 8th, we met in work session presenting this information to you.

And at that point, you directed staff to go back, do some research of what neighboring cities and other local uh municipalities in our area were charging and regulating for private property tows.

Uh after that meeting, I received a letter from Protow, which I've also attached to your staff report this evening.

William conducted the research that you asked for, so I'm gonna turn it over to him to summarize the information he found out.

Thank you.

Uh Assistant City Manager Finance Director Don Hudson.

Uh, and good evening, council.

It's great to be with you this evening.

Um so uh as mentioned, I got to do some of the research around private property uh impoundment, uh, which we're gonna talk a little bit more about this evening.

Um so I went ahead and reviewed uh municipal codes of several uh neighboring and comparator cities, um, which showed that most cities do not regulate private property impoundment uh in the ways that Tualeton does.

Uh however, Tweleton is not alone in that.

So before I go any further, I just want to uh remind council of of I keep using this uh term private property impoundment.

So this refers to uh tows that are uh ordered by a private uh entity, generally uh maybe something like a parking garage owner, manager, um, or a parking lot uh owner um towing uh private vehicles from their property.

Um so we reviewed uh 11 neighboring and uh neighboring and comparator cities uh and found that they do not regulate private uh parking impoundment fees.

Uh those include cities like Tiger, Beaverton, and Lake Oswego, um, as well as several others, and you'll find those in table two of the staff report.

Um however, as I mentioned, um well, most cities do not regulate private private property impoundment.

Uh Tualton is one of four that do.

So the other three that do are the city of cities of Portland, of Gresham, and of Fairview.

Um, and you'll find information on their rates there in table one.

Um, and I'll take a moment just to orient uh folks that table uh briefly.

So uh if you want to take a look at table one there, um you'll notice that the types of fees that are charged uh are listed in the leftmost column.

Um those fees include hookup fees, which include dispatch and labor involved in hooking up a vehicle to a tow truck, uh involves towed mileage fees covering transportation of a towed vehicle to a tow lot, uh lien filing fees, which are generally charged after a vehicle has been stored by a towing company for five days or more, uh release at scenes or drop fees, some jurisdictions call them drop fees, uh, and those cover fees if a uh vehicle has been hooked up, um, but the towing didn't actually begin.

Uh storage fees covering the tow company's costs to store the vehicle, um, as well as additional fees, which for the city of Tualton uh includes an after hours release fee uh for vehicles released outside of business hours.

Uh you'll also note there that uh you'll see some fees are divided by class.

That uh is based upon the gross uh vehicle weight uh of the vehicle being towed.

Most vehicles fall in class A, so that's up to 10,000 pounds in gross vehicle weight.

Um Class B is 10 to 20,000, and class C is 20,000 and above.

Um as you look at table one, uh you'll notice we have Portland, Gresham, Fairview, and Twalaton moving left to right, and the truth the rates that are proposed by Beaverton towing uh on the far right there.

Um so that's what we have for the council.

Um I want to see if the council has any questions or follow-ups.

Okay, questions.

Council President Pratt.

Um I want to understand why um there's only this four cities that impose these rates.

What's the the logic behind imposing these rates as opposed to all the other cities that don't to start?

I I think we'd we'd have to bring some further research back to council on that.

Um but I can't say other cities have more to do with parking um where they might have a parking division, whereas we rely more on uh private private.

I was on council when we did this.

It was to protect the residents of Twalton from being gouged on PPI tows, which are private property tows.

Those cities that don't have regulations, the towers decide what the rates are.

And it's the wild wild west.

Whereas we get when you have this at least is our fee schedule, and that's the reason behind it.

Council Ray.

Um getting any do we charge them for doing anything here in our community or any fees like that?

Like um are we charging these tool companies to do service for business here?

Sure.

Uh so towing companies pay for their business licenses, um, but beyond that, all the fees that are paid are paid by the vehicle owner to the towing company uh and don't come straight to the city.

The the way the I used to do this for City of Portland.

So it's say you're an apartment building owner, you contract with a towing company to tell those vehicles at a park, you know, at your apartment complex illegally.

So it's basically an agreement between the property owner and the towing company.