City tow truck plan on track despite protest

I guess they figured out who was responding," he said.

S&E Towing is one of a number of firms protesting a proposed city wrecker service pay plan they say is unfair. The city's last wrecker rotation agreement expired in 2002, and companies have been self-regulating since.

The new proposal, which is set for a vote by the City Council next week, caps wrecker service fees on most jobs at $75 and storage fees at $25 a day after the first day. The fees would apply to calls placed by the city to tow stolen and abandoned vehicles, parking violators, cars of people arrested by JPD, and vehicles involved in traffic accidents where the owner does not express a preference of company.

In the absence of a contract, most wrecker companies have been charging about $125 for tows. Street said he is in favor of greater regulation by the city, but his company cannot afford the cut mandated by this contract.

"We've had to govern ourselves," he said. "Some of us do a good job at that and some of us don't, but trying to feed us a contract that is $50 less than we have been doing for the last four years is ridiculous."

Council President Frank Bluntson said he is unmoved by the complaints.
"They have a right to do what they want to do," he said of the companies involved in the protest. "That's their business, but we have a right to protect the citizens of Jackson."

Poorer residents cannot afford to pay $125 to be towed from an accident, he said. "We have to look out for our constituents," Bluntson said.
Street said the city wants to cut wrecker company fees but has not cut its own storage fees and fines for towed vehicles.

City spokesman Chris Mims said the protest has not interfered with service.
"There were a couple of companies who did not answer the phone or refused to tow (Monday) night," he said Tuesday. "But we moved to the next available tow company on the list as we customarily have done."

The contract passed the council's planning committee Monday on a 3-0 vote. The full council will cast a final vote at its meeting July 27.

"We voted on the agreement that the Police Department said was in the best interest of the citizens of Jackson," Bluntson said.