Jackson Free Press

Three tow truck companies' refusal to remove a city-owned vehicle yesterday is the first casualty in a protest over the Jackson City Council's recently enacted wrecker-rotation policy, which caps the fees for towing services inside the city limits.

"We have a dump truck that was disabled, and every (wrecker service) we called said they're on strike," Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. told the Jackson Free Press after the Monday work session.

Jackson Public Works Director Dan Gaillet said the dump truck, which broke down near South Jackson asphalt supplier APAC-Mississippi, was full of asphalt--about 17,000 pounds of it destined for a street paving project in Ward 1, according to city spokesman Chris Mims. Gaillet said that asphalt only has a transportation life of only a few hours, and couldn't be used for the paving project.

"The truck sat there for a few hours. Once it loses its heat, it's worthless. I'd give it two hours at the most," Gaillet said, adding that the long wait turned the asphalt into a 17,000 pound "speed bump."

Mims said APAC-Mississippi "generously" decided not to charge the city for the lost merchandise, but added that the city has yet to work out its continuing issue with local wrecker services, and in the meantime, the city does not own a towing rig capable of hauling a commercial-grade truck.

Three local wrecker-service companies, so far, refuse to tow city-owned large commercial vehicles after the city lowered towing fees at an Aug. 10 meeting. At the time, Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes argued that city residents could not afford exorbitant towing prices and praised the rotation policy, which limited most towing services to a standard $75 fee.

But Trey Ward, owner of Ward's Wrecker Service, said the three wrecker services refused to tow the city asphalt truck out of protest against the revised city towing ordinance.

"There's so many legal loopholes and things in there that regulate how much we can charge that nobody's going to go after it--not until they change the ordinance," Ward said. "We're all banded together on this."



Along with Ward's Wrecker Service, Hayle's Towing and Recovery and Hall's Towing Services provide heavy-duty towing jobs for the city. They are also the only companies in the area capable of moving large vehicles.

The new agreement lowers towing fees for cars and light trucks from $100 to $75 and caps fees on heavy-duty trucks, those weighing more than 15,000 pounds, at $185. City-owned cars, vans, mopeds and motorcycles have a $45 fee, while city-owned heavy duty trucks between 8,000 pounds and 15,000 pounds cost $75.

The revised fees are so low that wrecker companies would lose money, Ward argued.

"A lot of these little, small wrecker services out there aren't realizing this, so the big ones got together and said, 'Look, either they're going to change it, or we're not going to use the heavy-duties,'" Ward said.

After Johnson's briefing yesterday, members of the city council began to discuss the city purchasing its own towing rig capable of hauling trucks in excess of 15,000 pounds, but prices average $177,000 to $400,000 for 2006-year-model towing rigs of that caliber. The city's tight 2010-2011 operating budget has a $10.6 million shortfall from the prior year, and Johnson would not speculate on the city's ability to invest in such a purchase at this time.

The city could seek towing services outside the city, but Johnson told the Jackson Free Press yesterday that "many of these (striking) wrecker services" that could handle the stricken dump truck "are already outside the city."

Council President Frank Bluntson suggested to the council during the Monday work session that it "may be time to look at" the rotation policy, but did not specify when that would be.

Previous Comments

ID

159508

Comment

What does the City Council expect? Econ 101 - you can't artificially set low prices and expect the market to obey - the suppliers (towing companies) will just withdraw rather than operate at a loss. Stokes and Lumumba need a few lessons in basic economics.

Author

Hamlet

Date

2010-08-25T10:46:29-06:00