Towing the Line
April 2, 2019 5:24 AM Subscribe
There's Something Fishy A-boot Chicago's Towing Program "The city sells one in four towed vehicles. It pays a contractor with residents’ cars, yet the city... barely makes money. Someone should look at this."
Chicago towing operations are managed by United Road Towing, a private contractor. In 2016, Chicago gave them a contract to handle that work, at the estimated cost of $60 million over five years. URT has held towing contracts with Chicago for the last 30 years (under the name Environmental Auto Removal until 2006), despite the fact that it’s dodged many scandals. In the ’90s, the company was found to have bilked the city for $1 million. It’s been probed by the FBI in an interstate auto-theft ring. It once declared bankruptcy to avoid paying a $5 million settlement after the company was found to be illegally towing cars in another state. In 2004, the Chicago Sun-Times investigated the company, finding that it and the city sold off more than 70,000 cars in one year.
Chicago towing operations are managed by United Road Towing, a private contractor. In 2016, Chicago gave them a contract to handle that work, at the estimated cost of $60 million over five years. URT has held towing contracts with Chicago for the last 30 years (under the name Environmental Auto Removal until 2006), despite the fact that it’s dodged many scandals. In the ’90s, the company was found to have bilked the city for $1 million. It’s been probed by the FBI in an interstate auto-theft ring. It once declared bankruptcy to avoid paying a $5 million settlement after the company was found to be illegally towing cars in another state. In 2004, the Chicago Sun-Times investigated the company, finding that it and the city sold off more than 70,000 cars in one year.
Someone has to pick up for Lincoln Park Towing's slack.
PS: Chicago! Vote today!
posted by dinty_moore at 6:17 AM on April 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
PS: Chicago! Vote today!
posted by dinty_moore at 6:17 AM on April 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
The song
Lincoln Towing is probably still in business.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:21 AM on April 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
Lincoln Towing is probably still in business.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:21 AM on April 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
Corruption in Chicago politics seems like the dog bites man of news stories, but it's always nice to see someone doing interesting reporting around poverty law issues.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:24 AM on April 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 6:24 AM on April 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
I thought that Lincoln Towing had lost its license last September (FPP about it), but apparently a judge allowed them to stay open during the appeals process, so it's ghoulishly living on.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:28 AM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by dinty_moore at 6:28 AM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm daydreaming about how the line review of this went with WBEZ's legal counsel —
"You can't call them sketchy, but you can call them dicey."
posted by Glomar response at 7:01 AM on April 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
"You can't call them sketchy, but you can call them dicey."
posted by Glomar response at 7:01 AM on April 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
Why would the city have to pay for a contractor to handle its towing needs? Towing is the last big grift; having permission to tow cars illegally parked on city streets is a license to print money.
Don't get me wrong, I want every tow shop burned to the ground and its owners banished to the deepest circle of hell, but at the point where you decide you need a private group to handle your city's towing needs, THEY should be bidding for what they'll pay YOU for the privilege.
posted by Mayor West at 7:02 AM on April 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
Don't get me wrong, I want every tow shop burned to the ground and its owners banished to the deepest circle of hell, but at the point where you decide you need a private group to handle your city's towing needs, THEY should be bidding for what they'll pay YOU for the privilege.
posted by Mayor West at 7:02 AM on April 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
This is my plan for reviving the dying newspaper industry. They should be allowed to collect part of the money saved that comes from exposing systematic government or government-contracted corruption. Perform a $100,000 investigation, save the government $1,000,000, keep $500,000.
(Of course some sort of constraints to prevent drumming up phony scandals.)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:06 AM on April 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
(Of course some sort of constraints to prevent drumming up phony scandals.)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:06 AM on April 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
Why would the city have to pay for a contractor to handle its towing needs?
Chicago, under Daley and then even more under Emmanuel, is a neoliberal paradise of subcontracting. It's not just towing, the city sold off its parking meters (!) to a private company, and then privatized fare collection for public transit with Ventra, defunds public education to support private charters, and don't get me started on Tax Increment Financing, a huge giveaway to real estate and corporate investors.
Essentially the Chicago elite have for a long time viewed the city itself as a series of assets to sell off to private corporations so that they can extract rents. That's the Chicago way. It isn't corruption if it's just the normal way of doing business.
posted by dis_integration at 7:32 AM on April 2, 2019 [10 favorites]
Chicago, under Daley and then even more under Emmanuel, is a neoliberal paradise of subcontracting. It's not just towing, the city sold off its parking meters (!) to a private company, and then privatized fare collection for public transit with Ventra, defunds public education to support private charters, and don't get me started on Tax Increment Financing, a huge giveaway to real estate and corporate investors.
Essentially the Chicago elite have for a long time viewed the city itself as a series of assets to sell off to private corporations so that they can extract rents. That's the Chicago way. It isn't corruption if it's just the normal way of doing business.
posted by dis_integration at 7:32 AM on April 2, 2019 [10 favorites]
Oh and don't get me started about what Rahm did to Midway airport's shopping and dining
posted by dis_integration at 7:34 AM on April 2, 2019
posted by dis_integration at 7:34 AM on April 2, 2019
Tell me about some Chicago city service that isn't rife with corruption and graft.
Ages ago the owner at the place I used to work looked back nostalgically at his time as a tow truck driver, dragging car after car in front of a fire hydrant, photographing them for "proof" and then towing them, until the tow yard was overflowing.
posted by wotsac at 7:59 AM on April 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Ages ago the owner at the place I used to work looked back nostalgically at his time as a tow truck driver, dragging car after car in front of a fire hydrant, photographing them for "proof" and then towing them, until the tow yard was overflowing.
posted by wotsac at 7:59 AM on April 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Chicago also tolerates what I call "trap lots". These are parking lots at strip malls/commercial areas that generate revenue by being extremely quick with the denver boot for any driver who uses the lot but doesn't go immediately into one of the mall's stores. The lots are overkill for the mall area and could probably have part of them be a paid public parking lot but they make more money by booting a couple of cars a day.
There is one across the street from my building and they even have security that hides behind street parked cars in front of our building that calls in the tow trucks to install the boot.
So something that could be a decent community good - a paid parking lot or at least partial paid parking lot is instead something that is a community evil.
posted by srboisvert at 8:42 AM on April 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
There is one across the street from my building and they even have security that hides behind street parked cars in front of our building that calls in the tow trucks to install the boot.
So something that could be a decent community good - a paid parking lot or at least partial paid parking lot is instead something that is a community evil.
posted by srboisvert at 8:42 AM on April 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
It's terrible how we all shake our heads and say "Oh Chicago, you so corrupt" as if it were OK. The Economist had a good background article from an outsider (ie: non-American) perspective recently. Chicago’s political system is set up to produce corruption.
posted by Nelson at 8:45 AM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 8:45 AM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
I thought that Lincoln Towing had lost its license last September (FPP about it), but apparently a judge allowed them to stay open during the appeals process, so it's ghoulishly living on.
It would live on anyway because they would just "sell" the business and reopen under a different name. The only difference would be that they would have to grease the committee aldermen a bit more surreptitiously and probably a bit more generously.
posted by srboisvert at 8:46 AM on April 2, 2019
It would live on anyway because they would just "sell" the business and reopen under a different name. The only difference would be that they would have to grease the committee aldermen a bit more surreptitiously and probably a bit more generously.
posted by srboisvert at 8:46 AM on April 2, 2019
One of the worst days of my life was thanks to Lincoln towing. Also thanks to them was the 2nd time i saw a fully nude person in public (same day). Friend and I had driven to this pizza place on the north side. Went inside, ordered, and discovered it was cash only. There was a citibank next door, but I guess it wasn't technically part of the shopping center that was serviced by the lot. the tow man watched us go into the pizza place, step next door to get cash at the outside atm, and then waited until we went back into the pizza place to tow the car, so they didn't get any flak or resistance from us. It was legally dubious but i absolutely needed my car, and they got my money anyway.
Fuck these guys, fuck the guys that work for them. They're vultures that feed on the poor. They can rot.
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:55 AM on April 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
Fuck these guys, fuck the guys that work for them. They're vultures that feed on the poor. They can rot.
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:55 AM on April 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
Oh it's not okay and nobody likes it...but how exactly do we stop Chicago corruption as private citizens besides elections and protests, which most everyone I know attends?
posted by agregoli at 8:56 AM on April 2, 2019
posted by agregoli at 8:56 AM on April 2, 2019
Here in Madison, there are a number of streets that convert the parking lane in the commute direction to a traffic lane during commute times. If there is a car parked in the lane during the switchover, they do a crazy thing called a “courtesy tow” where they just pick up your car and move it to a legal spot on a nearby side street. Small ticket, no impound or towing fees. Such a strange, citizen-friendly approach to solving a problem.
posted by rockindata at 9:01 AM on April 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by rockindata at 9:01 AM on April 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
This is kind of beside the point but those WBEZ folk have some pretty fine data analytics / visualization chops.
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:10 AM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:10 AM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
The Economist had a good background article from an outsider (ie: non-American) perspective recently. Chicago’s political system is set up to produce corruption.
As a note, Ed Burke actually won his Aldermanic seat a few weeks ago (post-FBI raid); he didn't even have to go to runoff.
One of my best friends wrote her dissertation on the history of Puerto Rican gangs and community groups in Chicago. One of her readers was aghast at her mentioning the similarities between the Young Lords and previous ethnic community groups that got folded into the legitimate Boss politics system (Like, showed her pictures of dead bodies aghast). We came to the conclusion that it wasn't that she had too high of an opinion on the Young Lords, it's that the reader had too high of an opinion of Chicago politicians.
Oh it's not okay and nobody likes it...but how exactly do we stop Chicago corruption as private citizens besides elections and protests, which most everyone I know attends?
1. There are still people out there who just think that this is the way things work and that you have to be a little corrupt to get anything done in Chicago. Like, say, my mother. There are still minds that need to be changed. Things can get better (things are getting better, slowly, but happening), nothing about the machine chugging along is inevitable.
2. Work for very specific fixes. The Mayoral ballot signature requirements, for example. Chicago requires 12,500 signatures to even get on the ballot, which is designed to allow anyone who gets in office to stay in office - the original number, decided by a Daley-controlled office, was 25,000, but a court halved it as more 'reasonable' (it's still much higher than any other US city's requirements). You can also only sign for one candidate. With 14 candidates in the February election, at the very least 1/3 of the total number of voters had to sign a petition to even allow their candidate to appear on the ballot. That's fucking insane. Agitate for term limits for Aldermen and Mayors, which are extremely common in other cities.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:14 AM on April 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
As a note, Ed Burke actually won his Aldermanic seat a few weeks ago (post-FBI raid); he didn't even have to go to runoff.
One of my best friends wrote her dissertation on the history of Puerto Rican gangs and community groups in Chicago. One of her readers was aghast at her mentioning the similarities between the Young Lords and previous ethnic community groups that got folded into the legitimate Boss politics system (Like, showed her pictures of dead bodies aghast). We came to the conclusion that it wasn't that she had too high of an opinion on the Young Lords, it's that the reader had too high of an opinion of Chicago politicians.
Oh it's not okay and nobody likes it...but how exactly do we stop Chicago corruption as private citizens besides elections and protests, which most everyone I know attends?
1. There are still people out there who just think that this is the way things work and that you have to be a little corrupt to get anything done in Chicago. Like, say, my mother. There are still minds that need to be changed. Things can get better (things are getting better, slowly, but happening), nothing about the machine chugging along is inevitable.
2. Work for very specific fixes. The Mayoral ballot signature requirements, for example. Chicago requires 12,500 signatures to even get on the ballot, which is designed to allow anyone who gets in office to stay in office - the original number, decided by a Daley-controlled office, was 25,000, but a court halved it as more 'reasonable' (it's still much higher than any other US city's requirements). You can also only sign for one candidate. With 14 candidates in the February election, at the very least 1/3 of the total number of voters had to sign a petition to even allow their candidate to appear on the ballot. That's fucking insane. Agitate for term limits for Aldermen and Mayors, which are extremely common in other cities.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:14 AM on April 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
They put one of yours in the hospital tow lot, you put two of theirs in the morgue, THAT'S the Chicago way!
posted by briank at 10:27 AM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by briank at 10:27 AM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
One of her readers was aghast at her mentioning the similarities between the Young Lords and previous ethnic community groups that got folded into the legitimate Boss politics system (Like, showed her pictures of dead bodies aghast).
One not often mentioned bit of Chicago history was that there were extremely violent white gangs in Chicago that were called 'Athletic Clubs' which were instrumental in some of the big early 1900s Chicago race riots and were in a sense feeder schools for the Chicago machine. The first Daley was a member of one.
Agitate for term limits for Aldermen and Mayors, which are extremely common in other cities.
I'm opposed to term limits because it means you have perpetually inexperienced people in office. The net result is that real power moves behind the scenes to unelected advisors and lobby organizations that can persist through time while elected officials are ineffective and easily manipulated.
posted by srboisvert at 12:02 PM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
One not often mentioned bit of Chicago history was that there were extremely violent white gangs in Chicago that were called 'Athletic Clubs' which were instrumental in some of the big early 1900s Chicago race riots and were in a sense feeder schools for the Chicago machine. The first Daley was a member of one.
Agitate for term limits for Aldermen and Mayors, which are extremely common in other cities.
I'm opposed to term limits because it means you have perpetually inexperienced people in office. The net result is that real power moves behind the scenes to unelected advisors and lobby organizations that can persist through time while elected officials are ineffective and easily manipulated.
posted by srboisvert at 12:02 PM on April 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
dinty_moore: As a note, Ed Burke actually won his Aldermanic seat a few weeks ago (post-FBI raid); he didn't even have to go to runoff.
What the... how does this happen? Is he that popular with his local constituents (like when Rob Ford was a city councillor in Toronto) or are the levers of power such that a third party candidate doesn't stand a chance?
posted by clawsoon at 4:08 PM on April 2, 2019
What the... how does this happen? Is he that popular with his local constituents (like when Rob Ford was a city councillor in Toronto) or are the levers of power such that a third party candidate doesn't stand a chance?
posted by clawsoon at 4:08 PM on April 2, 2019
What the... how does this happen? Is he that popular with his local constituents (like when Rob Ford was a city councillor in Toronto) or are the levers of power such that a third party candidate doesn't stand a chance?
I mean, he's been in that seat for 50 years. The levers of power are allowing some new candidates through (a lot of the aldermen that were targeted by progressive groups are at least going to runoff today, and you'll notice that Daley didn't make it to the mayoral runoff), but when someone manages to hold a seat for decades through gerrymandering and favors, it starts to seem impossible to get them out of power without death or a jail cell (the jail cell for Burke is assumed to be forthcoming). Part of it also is that the FBI raid was mid-January and the first election was late February, so there wasn't really time for another candidate to really make that the center of their campaign.
The only real reason it was close is that Chicago has an exciting mayoral election for once, since there was no incumbent and everyone and their mother was trying to run and get signatures. I was four when the second Daley was elected, and I don't think I ever remembered anyone taking a mayoral election seriously for the first 25 years of my life. There has to be something between 'constantly too new to do the job correctly' and 'allowed to be in office for so long that an entire generation grows up only knowing one person in power'.
posted by dinty_moore at 5:03 PM on April 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
I mean, he's been in that seat for 50 years. The levers of power are allowing some new candidates through (a lot of the aldermen that were targeted by progressive groups are at least going to runoff today, and you'll notice that Daley didn't make it to the mayoral runoff), but when someone manages to hold a seat for decades through gerrymandering and favors, it starts to seem impossible to get them out of power without death or a jail cell (the jail cell for Burke is assumed to be forthcoming). Part of it also is that the FBI raid was mid-January and the first election was late February, so there wasn't really time for another candidate to really make that the center of their campaign.
The only real reason it was close is that Chicago has an exciting mayoral election for once, since there was no incumbent and everyone and their mother was trying to run and get signatures. I was four when the second Daley was elected, and I don't think I ever remembered anyone taking a mayoral election seriously for the first 25 years of my life. There has to be something between 'constantly too new to do the job correctly' and 'allowed to be in office for so long that an entire generation grows up only knowing one person in power'.
posted by dinty_moore at 5:03 PM on April 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
As a note, Ed Burke actually won his Aldermanic seat a few weeks ago (post-FBI raid); he didn't even have to go to runoff.
What the... how does this happen? Is he that popular with his local constituents (like when Rob Ford was a city councillor in Toronto) or are the levers of power such that a third party candidate doesn't stand a chance?
Burke has had a lot of time to do favors for people in his constituency and build loyalty plus he had $14 million in his war chest. Also his opposition was two latinx who effectively split both the latin and progressive vote.
posted by srboisvert at 5:16 PM on April 2, 2019
What the... how does this happen? Is he that popular with his local constituents (like when Rob Ford was a city councillor in Toronto) or are the levers of power such that a third party candidate doesn't stand a chance?
Burke has had a lot of time to do favors for people in his constituency and build loyalty plus he had $14 million in his war chest. Also his opposition was two latinx who effectively split both the latin and progressive vote.
posted by srboisvert at 5:16 PM on April 2, 2019
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posted by agregoli at 5:27 AM on April 2, 2019 [11 favorites]