AURORA | For victims of auto theft, the roughly $200 fee that must be paid to get a recovered vehicle stolen from them out of the impound lot used by the city police is an insult added to injury.
Change may be coming after years of discussion, as council members expressed support on Monday for researching the costs of the city running its own impound lot, designed to break even rather than turn a profit.
Information included in the council’s agenda on Monday indicates that M&M Towing & Impound, which Aurora contracts with currently for impound services, collects around $975,000 in fees per year from theft victims.
“We can certainly do a lot better for our residents,” said Marcano, who supported the proposed investigation into the costs associated with a city-run lot.
While agenda documents say police can provide fee waivers on a case-by-case basis, they note that it is not financially feasible for the city to waive fees for all theft victims.
The proposal for the city to open its own lot comes as Aurora grapples with a rise in auto thefts, which rose by 32.1% between the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, according to data released by the Aurora Police Department.
Batchelor said other large Colorado cities such as Denver and Colorado Springs already operate their own impound lots.
“This has been looked at a number of times over the years. We’ve just never been given formal direction to proceed past a high-level exploratory phase,” Batchelor said.
If it’s passed at a regular meeting, the resolution would require the city to prepare a report within 180 days and present it to the Public Safety, Courts and Civil Service Policy Committee. The item proceeded out of study session unopposed on Monday.
Doesn’t sound like this is coming anytime soon and then who is going to help exactly? : “While agenda documents say police can provide fee waivers on a case-by-case basis, they note that it is not financially feasible for the city to waive fees for all theft victims.”
Doesn’t most auto insurance pay for towing and impound fees? Mine does. Of course, people have to purchase auto insurance for this to happen.
Would this create another layer of bureaucracy? I would think this would be one area suitable to privatization, but would also be interested in the studies.
My common sense tells me if we are the third biggest city in Colorado and the first two have this program then the probability is pretty high that it works for a big city and its citizens.
As a side note back in the last century, M and M Towing twice towed my vehicle. Both times I had items stolen from my impounded vehicle. You might guess, I’m not fond of that company. I reported the theft both times to the APD. Each time all they could say is, “I’m sorry, we can do nothing”.
Apparently, the problem is we have to many cars that are stolen daily and the cops send them to the M&M lot and so last year the city’s most recent thief crime fee came to $975,000. These crime fees for the folks living in Aurora has increased at such a rate now that currently the citizens are feeling the pinch and want action to fix the out-of-control high price of thief. Something must be done, it’s not fair to have this new fee. Very simple, those in charge, spend millions to buy land, build a facility, hire 24/7 personnel.
Council Danielle Jurinsky Monday night, had alluded to a fresh and un-orthodox option. She seemed to think that if cops were to bring back solid aggressive enforcement, and the courts did their job perhaps the city could avoid this project. That seemed almost too reasonable of a solution for council to think it might be the most common-sense solution.
And if the city is so determined to do this the two once and a while used parking structures that were sold to us to be a economic wind fall, guaranteed easy money makers years ago yet sit empty in central and north Aurora. Perfect storage already made for parking. Anybody in the city think of using what we all ready have, kinda doubtful? Or, all the open land owned by the city at Lowery? So many vehicles have been parking illegally out there for a year or better already.
I have no solution to offer, only a nonsensical first hand experience. Many years ago I loaned my car to my son who lived in Jefferson County, it was stolen from his parking space there; the car was found (in decent shape) in Bennett, Adams County; towed to an impound lot in Parker, Douglas County; owner (me) lives in Aurora, Arapahoe County. If I’d known it was being towed past my house I would have gone outside my door and waved as it went by.