Towing Policy Is Not Off the Hook

Last week, Maywood city officials took steps to modify a draconian traffic-enforcement policy that has seen thousands of cars impounded at a cost of several million dollars to the owners. That is to Maywood’s credit.

But the city’s attempt to fix its automobile-impound policy falls well short of where Maywood’s critics think it should be.

I first wrote about Maywood, just southeast of Los Angeles, two weeks ago, focusing on the controversial strategy the city has used in recent years to impound large numbers of cars driven by unlicensed drivers, usually illegal immigrants but sometimes just unwary U.S. citizens with suspended, out-of-date or out-of-pocket licenses. The strategy was supposed to be about safety, but to its critics it looked like a way for Maywood and its official tow company to cash in on a vulnerable class.

Almost every Friday afternoon at rush hour, Maywood police set up traffic roadblocks at busy intersections, stopping cars passing through town, impounding dozens an hour in a military-style operation.

On Aug. 11, however, Maywood Mayor Pro Tem George Pena and other city officials joined one of their most vocal critics, Assemblyman Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), to announce modifications to Maywood’s traffic checkpoints: They would not be set up until 10 p.m., when police would be more apt to nab drunk drivers and other ne’er-do-wells, as opposed to motorists on their way home from work. And cars driven by unlicensed illegal immigrants who were first-time offenders would no longer be impounded but rather held only until a licensed motorist could drive the vehicle away. The new practice began Aug. 8, Pena said, and 48 vehicles that would previously have been impounded and held 30 days were freed within hours.

“It’s a good first step,” said a leader of the LA Metro Project, a church-based organization that has led the campaign against the roadblocks with the help of a Maywood immigrant-rights group, Comite Pro Uno. “But it doesn’t go far enough for some of the people we want to help.”

People like Yolanda and Paolo, two Mexican garment workers I met while investigating Maywood’s policies. They asked me not to use their last name in case they are stopped by Maywood police -- again.

They have been stopped three times in a year, not at the checkpoints but by Maywood motorcycle officers who station themselves outside the garment factory where Paolo works. “They target people like us,” Yolanda said. She may not be wrong; the same officer has impounded her beat-up $1,000 Dodge Shadow twice in the last three months. Paolo paid $656 in impound fees and fines in June and is saving to pay the same amount again this month.

Limiting Maywood’s roadblocks won’t help people like them much. Nor will it keep them off the streets very long, given that, like most Angelenos, they need a car to get to work and to drop kids off at school.

That helps explain the anger over the Maywood police force’s admittedly “aggressive” traffic enforcement practices. Pena dates the program to the 1999 death of a Maywood motorcycle officer in a traffic accident involving an unlicensed driver. But that context does not calm the suspicion of critics like Nunez, who asks: “Does Maywood really want safe streets, or are they just raising money for themselves and Maywood Club Tow?”

Maywood Club Tow is the private company that has an exclusive contract to handle the city’s lucrative towing and impound business. Maywood residents also note it is a campaign contributor to most members of the City Council. That’s why LA Metro is pushing for a city ordinance barring such seeming conflicts of interest. And why Comite Pro Uno wants Maywood Club Tow to give people back some of the millions it made over the last few years auctioning impounded vehicles, sharing 15% of the profits, and a $15-per-car administrative fee, with the city.

So although Maywood’s controversial roadblocks may be history, the political controversy they ignited is not.

Frank del Olmo is associate editor of The Times.