COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING BEFORE COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Friday, December 3, 1999 10:15 a.m. - - - RESOLUTION NO. 990615 - Authorizing the City Council Committee's on Public Safety to hold a public hearing to investigate the possibility of changing the existing procurement process for salvers that pick up abandoned automobiles to a procurement process that creates a request-for-proposal system for each police district. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN ANGEL L. ORTIZ, Chair COUNCILMAN DARRYL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN FRANK DICICCO COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 2 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 I N D E X Police Commissioner John Timoney . . . . . . . 5 John Gallgher, Special Advisor . . . . . . . . 34 to Police Commissioner Timoney 6 State Senator Shirley Kitchen. . . . . . . . . 42 7 Third Senatorial District 8 State Representative Dwight Evans. . . . . . . 42 203rd Legislative District 9 Stephanie Franklin-Suber, Esquire. . . . . . . 79 10 Philadelphia City Solicitor Louis Applebaum, Procurement Commissioner. . . 86 Commissioner Lawrence Moy, Streets Department 92 Father John Halloran, Pastor . . . . . . . . . 109 Incarnation Church, Olney Janet Torres, EPOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Carmen Maria Lebron, EPOP. . . . . . . . . . . 109 Helen Brown, Community Organizer . . . . . . . 109 Project H.O.M.E. Vicki Thompson, EPOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 George Groves, City Salver . . . . . . . . . . 134 Ruth Birchett, President, Founder Heritage . . 142 Community Economic Development Corporation Maria Dirkson, Committee Person. . . . . . . . 150 North Philadelphia 3 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 P R O C E E D I N G S
Could all members of the Public Safety Committee come to the chambers; we're ready to begin. Please make it down to Council chambers. - - -
Good morning. The meeting of the Public Safety Committee is opening. We have present in the audience today State Senator Shirley Kitchen, State Representative Dwight Evans, Commissioner John Timoney, and other individuals from different groups that are ready to testify. Will the clerk please read the title of the resolution, please.
A resolution authorizing the City Council Committee's on Public Safety to hold a public hearing to investigate the possibility of changing the existing procurement process for salvers that pick up abandoned automobiles to a procurement process that creates a request-for-proposal system for each police district.
And that's 4 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 resolution the 90615. Abandoned cars have been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problems that each and every one of our offices faces. It seems that the abandoned cars in Philadelphia breed. It seems that they have a mating season. And in certain neighborhoods of our city, these cars breed much faster than in other neighborhoods. If you go through Kensington, if you go through North Philadelphia, you will always see abandoned cars. And if you remove them and if you remove them today, they seem to appear as if by magic the next day. They seem to be replaced. And they seem to have countless and countless of numbers. Sometimes I believe that either we have people transporting cars into the City of Philadelphia, or that we have cars that magically reproduce themselves. And, obviously, we need a plan. During the spring, we had hearings on abandoned cars in this Council. We asked the Commissioner then to develop a plan to bring forward how is it that we are going to move forward with this blight that affects the quality 5 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 of life in our neighborhoods. Obviously, it is one of the biggest problems that we have. I know crime and drugs are present every day, but there is no bigger source of complaint in my office -- and I know there's no 7 bigger source of complaint in any other district person's office -- than abandoned cars. I have gone to Dwight's district, and the issue that came up during the summer was abandoned cars. It wasn't about criminals; it was about abandoned cars. We need, obviously, to do something about this. The Commissioner, I know, has a plan. I believe the Police Department probably are not the office or the department to begin taking care of this. Dwight Evans and other individuals in the House and in the Senate are prepared to put forth a package to deal with this to give certain tools to the City of Philadelphia to be able to manage, and we welcome that help. So today, working on the Councilman's -- my colleague, my new colleague's -- resolution, we will be investigating and looking for solutions, because we know the problem, we 6 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 know the problem, and what we want to go forward on is what the solutions are. Darryl? Councilman Darryl Clarke.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you indicated earlier, Mr. Chairman, this is a problem that is ever-increasing. This morning on my way to work, I had the pleasure of riding down 33rd Street, as I do every day, and there were 10 abandoned vehicles in a 2-block area. And it's gotten to the point that enough is enough. During the last several months, members of this Council have been looking at different ways to alleviate this problem. We've been talking to residents throughout the community about these issues. And I was, frankly speaking, very happy to see that this past week, the Mayor, Commissioner Timoney, Representative Evans, State Senator Fumo, some members of this Council -- I believe Councilman DiCicco, Mariano, and Kenny had a press conference to talk about a number of issues a number of programs that they felt would alleviate this problem. 7 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 There were probably touched on base with everything, with the exception of two of the issues that we felt needed to be put as a part of this package to resolve this issue. And one of them was this process of RFPing to make sure that we had a specific entity designated and obligated to remove these vehicles. And I think that the other issue had something to do with the cost or the amount of money that was -- the cap that was put on the vehicles that were listed as junkers. I believe this current cost is 250. And my understanding, from talking to a number of police officers who actually provide that service, that they feel that if that cap was raised up to approximately 750 to $1,000, it would give them an opportunity to designate probably 95 percent of those vehicles junkers; therefore, being able to queue them and sell them as salvage. So today, one of the things, as the Chairman, Angel Ortiz, indicated, we would like to get to some resolution. We would like to, hopefully, today have this be the final piece of the puzzle, put this together. Then when we reconvene after the end of this session, we would 8 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 like to have an extremely comprehensive program so when we traverse the streets during the spring of this year, that will not be an issue in our communities. And I see some of the residents from some of the areas that I represent, and I want to thank you all. I understand we have some representatives from both the east and west of Broad, where this is an extremely difficult problem. So today, we will be hearing testimony. I think the majority of it will be probably information talking about the horrors of this abandoned-vehicle situation, but we would like to leave here today with some resolution to this issue. So, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Thank you, Councilman Clarke. Like Councilman Clarke said, we know the problem. I have seen people come in here during the last hearing we had in the spring. We had a lady come in with pictures of a car with Christmas trees in it, Christmas trees. And it 9 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 was not from just one Christmas; it had been there for like two Christmases. So we know what the problem is. What we want is -- the system we have, obviously, is not working. And what is it that we need to do to begin resolving this issue? Does it need to be put in another department other than the police? Does it need to go to Sanitation, does it need to go to the Managing Director's Office? And from the State Representatives that are here, what is the significance of their legislation to us here in the city, and what are the tools that they bring to this City Council to be able -- and this city government to be able to take care of this problem. Commissioner Timoney, can you please come forward, please. (Commissioner Timoney comes forward.)
Excuse me, Councilman. We have Councilman Rizzo, Councilman Clarke, and Councilman DiCicco with us. A quorum 10 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 of this committee is present.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for the record, in your opening statement, you mentioned that one of the principal concerns from constituents are abandoned cars in any particular district. I'm not certain if it was always the number-one complaint in my office but recently, since the Streets Department has taken the position to begin cleaning streets in the southern portion of my district on a weekly basis, the biggest complaint I get out of South Philly now is that their cars are being ticketed because we're doing something good by cleaning the streets. So no good deed goes unpunished, as they say. But the interesting thing about that is, I've noticed in the target area where we do the weekly sweeping, a number, a significant number of vehicles have been removed that were formerly abandoned, and in many cases those cars, we didn't know were abandoned; they were cars that may have been owned by a resident on that block, an older car, figured some day they would get 11 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 around to fixing it up or repairing it. And we find that because of the sweeping unit, the sweeping program, they have to remove their car. And on that particular day, they were left in a spot, they were ticketed, and then eventually they were towed. So I think it's something probably through this conversation today, through these hearings, there might be some cooperation between the Streets Department and the Police Department and maybe the Managing Director's Office. So I think we can accomplish a few things, one of getting rid of abandoned cars in the same process while we're doing the street-cleaning. It's interesting how that turned out.
Efficiency. Commissioner, please identify yourself for the record. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Good morning. I'm Police Commissioner John Timoney, Commissioner of Philadelphia.
Wendy Staten (ph.), legal counsel for the Police Department. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Councilmembers, 12 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 thank you for the invitation to testify this morning. As you're well aware, we do have a promotions ceremony scheduled at Community College at o'clock. 6
Yes. 7 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: And so my 8 written testimony has been submitted. 9 (Commissioner Timoney's testimony not 10 submitted to stenographer.) 11 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I'll go through it quickly and then be ready to answer any questions, and then hopefully get out of here by quarter to, 10 to 11, if that's okay with you, sir.
No problem, sir. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: During my tenure as Police Commissioner, I've attended hundreds of community meetings and, just as you said, Councilman Ortiz, no matter where it is, no matter what time, no matter how tough the neighborhood, the number-one issue at every community meeting -- or almost every community meeting -- is the issue of abandoned cars.
I remember the 13 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 summer, remember? The 10th Ward? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yes, exactly. And the Police Department's worked very hard to remove as many abandoned vehicles as possible from the streets of Philadelphia. However, major changes in the legislative framework are necessary in order to make our efforts more efficient. The Police Department has taken extraordinary steps to remove abandoned vehicles over the past two years, as I've been here. Through the end of last week, we've removed 32,356 abandoned vehicles. This is a 50 percent increase over last year's total and an 80 percent increase over the number of abandoned vehicles removed in 1997. However, these numbers are meaningless if you have an abandoned vehicle in front of your home. Quite frankly, even with all of our efforts, the Police Department is still barely able to keep ahead of the calls for removal of additional abandoned vehicles. In fact, I have assigned a chief, a full chief, to oversee the Department's effort to remove abandoned vehicles. 14 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Presently, there is at least one abandoned vehicle officer assigned to each district. Some districts have up to three. The sole job of these officers is to facilitate the removal of abandoned vehicles from within the district. Furthermore, the Police Department engages in roving sweeps throughout the City to target areas with high concentration of abandoned vehicles. And so, for example, just probably about two weeks ago, we hit the 25th District, one of the more problematic ones, and removed 1200 vehicles.
And I bet you that a week later, in those same areas, you had 1200 more. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I wouldn't disagree with that, sire. There are more pre-tow and post-tow waiting periods that exist before an abandoned vehicle can be removed and disposed of. By State law, PennDOT regulations and consent decrees, an abandoned vehicle cannot be removed from the street for a minimum of 10 to 12 days. This waiting period ostensibly exists to allow for 15 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 notice to the owner of the abandoned vehicle for an opportunity to claim said vehicle. This waiting period exists, even if the vehicle is a burnt-out hulk once. Once the salver removes the abandoned vehicle from the street, the salver is required by law to keep the vehicle in their lot up to three months, while the last known owner is again notified before PennDOT authorizes the destruction of the vehicle. During this post-tow waiting period, the vehicle takes up space on the salver's lot, and ultimately, the salver's ability to remove additional abandoned vehicles is halted. This past September, I notified the City Council that the Police Department had a leading role in the task force established by Mayor Rendell to address the issue of abandoned vehicles. The City has worked hard to identify the legal and procedural obstacles that hamper our efforts to remove abandoned vehicles. I am pleased to report that many of our recommendations have been adopted and enhanced in legislation introduced by State Representative Dwight Evans. Most fundamentally, this 16 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 legislation will change the very definition of abandoned vehicles. Many abandoned vehicles are no more than burned out shells. These hulks are the most dangerous and most offensive of all the abandoned vehicles, and they should be treated as any other trash found in the city streets. The legislation will distinguish between a derelict vehicle with only nominal value and abandoned vehicles. Derelict vehicles will be eligible for immediate removal, with no waiting period. Others abandoned vehicles will be marked with a bright sticker that will serve notice to any interested parties that the vehicle will be removed within three days. Once the vehicles are removed by the salver, the waiting period imposed upon the salver will be reduced to 10 days for the derelict vehicles, and 20 days for other abandoned vehicles. Other provisions will increase the fees paid by the State to salvers from the current $15 to $72 per vehicle, while reducing the payment period from 6 months to 30 days. These changes will stimulate 17 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 competition among our salvers, and combined with reduced time periods that the vehicles must be stored in the lot, it will allow salvers to remove many more vehicles in the same period of time. The Police Department will continue our efforts under the current framework, but we are hopeful that the new legislation will allow us to manage abandoned vehicle programs once and for all. Mr. Councilmember and Councilmembers, I thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you, and I'm prepared to answer any questions. Good morning, Mr. Kenney.
We have been joined by Councilman Nutter and Councilman Kenney. Commissioner, one question, which is, I find it a waste of resources that we have the Police Department in charge of removing abandoned vehicles. If we get the tools from the State legislature -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yes, sir.
-- to be able to 18 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 move on forward, is it your recommendation that we remove -- or would you prefer that that not be one of the law enforcement duties that you look over? Because I believe that it should be either the Sanitation Department, the Parking Authority, or the Managing Director's Office, and we should be able to structure an agency of abandoned vehicles -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
-- to be able to move forward, instead of wasting the resources of three individuals in the 25th District. I imagine in Philadelphia, we have two or three individuals when we have crime and drug dealers in each of these areas. I'd like your reaction to a proposal of that sort. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, the one thing that I want to point out is that the officers that are assigned to the Abandoned Vehicle Program are doing a good job. We're doing it more than ever. And so my sense is, I don't want to leave the impression that some of the fault is the Police Department's. There are 19 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 clearly structural obstacles to getting these abandoned vehicles off the streets. But I think it's up to Council to make that decision. We are fully prepared with the new recommendations put forth by State Representative Dwight Evans and a whole host of other reforms, which we think will go far in removing this problem -- whether it's done by the Police Department or some department within Sanitation. You know, I have -- would I like to get rid of it? You know, unlike police officers -- when you hire a police officer and you ask the average man or woman, What do you hire them for? And they'll tell you, I hired them to be out on the street to lock up the bad guys. It's kind of a basic thing. And anything other than that, one could argue, is clearly going away from your core mission. However, however, let's go back to my opening statement. Every single meeting I go to, I get beat up on abandoned autos, and so right now, I --
Because right now it's the responsibility of the Police Department. 20 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
Yeah, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last night, I was at a community meeting in the 22nd Police District in -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: I spoke to the chief this morning and he said he was with you, yes.
And Captain (unintelligible) and Officer Braxton were getting beat up. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yes.
And I actually had to tell the community that it wasn't their fault, and that they were actually doing a good job given the tools that they had. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, thanks very much.
And as Councilman Ortiz indicated, I've asked that question on several occasions about using a very valuable resource such as a police officer when we have some of these other issues relating to crime, that 21 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 we think that they're better off doing that, in addition to this whole issue about police officers writing sanitation tickets. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Mm-hmm.
So we will probably, in the future, be making some formalized proposal to change that. One of the questions that I would like to ask with respect to that, would the change of such a designation have to do with the bargaining units with the unions? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, that's some of the questions that we would have to discuss with Council, and we would have to discuss it with the new administration coming in. I mean, there are some issues that I'm sure Mayor Street will want to get his feelings heard on and his new administration's feelings heard. And so while we can hopefully discuss things here, there's no firm commitment on my part or on the part of the Department's, 'cause there are such issues. If the past is any indication of the ruling of arbitrators, my sense is that the abandoned vehicle officer is a thing that will be 22 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 in Philadelphia, even if Sanitation takes over that function. You'll have some mindless arbitrator saying, No, that's been a police official's job for the last ten years, and you can never get rid of it. And so I'm not as sanguine as Mr. Ortiz is as far as getting it from -- removing it from -- to move it from the Police Department over to the Sanitation Department. My sense is that the FOP and the arbitrators will not look so kindly on that.
Yeah, that's what we were just trying to get a sense of, and I'm not sure that this is the appropriate place to ask you what your position would be, if such a public hearing were held. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Oh, I have no 19 problem voicing my opinion on those things.
All right, so you are forthright, Commissioner. And I'm assuming that at some point in time, that question will be posed to you officially. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Good. 23 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
So we look forward to getting your response on that. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Great.
Thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Councilman Rizzo.
No matter what occurs, if it does move to the Streets Department, there's always times, I'm sure, where there's a confrontation, where a police presence is good if it's a person that doesn't want their car towed away. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Sure.
So I'm sure there could always be a way to work together in the event that there's a situation where the police presence would be needed. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
Commissioner, my question is more so about the magnitude of the problem. You've given us some numbers on how many vehicles you removed. 24 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
Yesterday, while visiting someone at Temple Hospital, right at Broad and Sedgley. There's a vehicle burned out. You could tell it's been there -- right on Broad Street -- for months. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
How many abandoned vehicles -- do we know how many? Councilman Ortiz indicated that they're continually being dropped. And you, coming from New York, indicated that you just couldn't just believe what occurs here in Philadelphia. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
Do you have a number, a possible number, an approximate number of how many abandoned vehicles? If you had the ability to go get them all, how many are out there? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: You know, it is extremely difficult. We've tried and we've gotten an account from the various -- and it's a fluid account, understandably. But anywhere from, you know, I think at any one time, we're anywhere, you 25 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 know, from 8 to 12,000. But it's always in a state of flux. So it's an extremely difficult number to pin down. And even the record-keeping is not the best, which is why we put together this whole comprehensive program.
So if we were asked as of December 1st, how many abandoned vehicles are out there in process to be removed from the streets of the City of Philadelphia, you could come up with a number? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Oh, yeah, absolutely, but --
Do you have an estimate? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, here's the problem with the estimate. And let me just give you a practical problem. At the meeting I was at with Councilman Ortiz up in the 35th Police District, that was the week we had completed a sweep, our abandoned vehicle officer in the 35th had called in 850 vehicles. We had the logs in. So now you have to go back around and check. Out of the 850 that were called in, only 175 had been removed. 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 A couple weeks ago, in the 25th, we called in, I think it was 1800, of which, when we went back around, 1200. I mean, they did a great job in the 25th. But it's a constant effort of -- even when you log them in and you know they're coming in, it's extraordinarily -- it's a fungible number that constantly moves, so it's hard to get a grasp of it. I mean, the best estimate is your own. It's -- if you look at the magnitude, it's 32,000 so far for one month, an estimate for one month. That's floating, which is -- if you look at the 32,000 so far this year, we estimate that there will be around 36,000 for the year that were removed. You just do a quick math. If you divide it by 12, it will give you around 4,000 every month coming in new into the system. If you -- we've actually mapped out -- and if you look at the map, we estimate 4600 per month. And this is a map which I'll share with you.
Do you have a map? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. 27 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
You can stay there, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: But, again, it's constantly moving. But there's a new, we estimate, 4,000 each month coming in. How many are on the street at any given time? Again, hard to estimate. But we know -- we are clear that it's about 36,000 by the end of the year.
Commissioner, I've heard something that isn't consistent with what I thought I knew. Today you said something about burned-out vehicles that are considered intimately (sic) dangerous. I'm not putting words in your mouth, but you said the were burned-out hulks. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
And that you still had to follow process. I was under the impression that you didn't have to follow a process. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: You have an emergency excusal (sic), and that's true. But we need in the law the definition, because when you leave discretion into it, your discretion, your idea of what's a hulk or what's 28 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 valued at $2500 or what's valued at $250 if different than Mr. Kenney's, is different than mine. And with part of the legislation, what we're trying to do, one, is to jack up the value of these cars, that no apparent value needs to be -- I forget the figures. I think it's less than $600, number one. Number two, automatically describing a burnt-out shell as "a derelict vehicle," which is processed in a completely different manner, so that you don't have to look up and articulate emergency exception to the abandoned vehicle. When you start doing that, you run into all sorts of problems. It's not only a problem with the salvers. I'm sure they'll testify that when they get there and there's garbage in there -- and I can understand there are bricks and everything else and Christmas trees. And they say, I'm not picking up that up, I'm not the Streets Department. And so you have this argument going back and forth. And so we think all the proposed legislation and regulations that we proposed last Monday, along with anything else that comes out of 29 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 this committee, we think will clear up the problem.
Is there a priority about schools and hospitals and that sort of thing? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Oh, for me, there is, yeah. I mean think -- and anytime I meet school members, for example, over at the 25th just a couple of weeks ago, we dedicated a lot that had been cleaned out that the principal brought to my attention. And when we sent the officer, right then and there, there were three cars in front of the school. I mean, kids should not be facing that as you're walking out to the sidewalk to get the bus or meet your parents. You should not.
Thank you very much. I know your time is short, you have another appointment. Often when I see vehicles abandoned in my own neighborhood, there's no wheels, they're 30 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 stripped, and they are sometimes burned. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Right.
And I always said to myself, How come nobody ever sees someone taking that car apart? And then I realize that the car is being taken part somewhere else and being dumped there. Isn't that not a problem that we're dealing with a lot of tow truck operators who are paid to perhaps remove a car or have some involvement with a chop shop or some operation where, once the car has been dissected, that it is dumped on a city street, probably by a tow truck. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
And have we found that there are -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: No, actually, we've had some complaints of that. We actually set up -- and I can disclose it now 'cause it's in the past. We actually set up at certain locations pole cameras and we found no evidence of it. It was -- that they were --
My point is, how do they get there? 31 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, this is the $64,000 question. I mean, do they fall out of the sky? I think you started out that way. I mean, it's just -- you drive by, there's nothing there, you drive there the next day and there's two. How in God's name do they get there? I mean, it's --
But my point is, when there's no wheels on it, it's got to be brought there by some other method. And in some of the places I've seen them dropped, people would see someone stripping a car. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
It's not a desolate neighborhood where no one lives; there's people right across the street. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
I mean, even if they were doing it at 3, 4 in the morning, at some point in time, somebody will call 9-1-1, saying there's something going on out there. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
So it seems to me to be a very quick operation of a drop and then 32 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 they move on. Have we been able to determine the origin of the automobile when we do whatever research we do? Are they coming from inside the City, are they registered outside the City? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: That's part of the problem. We've done a small study of a sample going back, and part of the problem is -- and this is why we need to deal with this in a wholistic fashion. We wound up going back, in some cases, to five or six past owners. One of the real problems is -- and I've met with Councilman Ortiz and Ben Ramos on this. I mean, we have been lax, the Police Department, in enforcing traffic regulations, insurance regulations, licenses and requirements. I mean, we have been. We have been, over now the last six or eight months, racheting up that pressure. You just can't allow folks to drive. I mean, I understand that it costs a lot of money, but if you can't afford it, then you can't have the car. I mean, that's a simple of fact. If you can't afford the assurance, you just can't have the 33 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 car. If you don't have a driver's license, you can't drive. And so we're in the process of enforcing those laws. But there is an issue of, Okay, what are you going to do with the car? There's an issue of capacity that's completely outside the purview of the Police Department. All of those issues of stepped-up enforcement, and then if you confiscate the car, what are you going to do with it? The issue of capacity. My sense is, they're all going to be dealt with in that whole series of proposals that the Mayor put forward on Monday.
But the question I have is, have we been able to determine through the chain of ownership the origin of the car, where it may have come from? Are they all City-registered -- are they not registered or are they registered in the City, or have they been registered somewhere else? I'm trying to determine -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah. John, do you have --
I mean, don't think 34 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 the suburbs have the same problem that we have, obviously. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: No. 5
So I'm wondering whether or not, again, we're becoming the dumping ground for vehicles that may have been registered in surrounding areas. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, John's been working on this for months and so maybe he 11 can give further insight into that. 12 (John Gallagher comes forward.) 13
Good morning. John 14 Gallagher, special advisor to Police Commissioner 15 Timoney. 16 Councilman Kenney, not to give you too 17 brief of an answer, but it's the nature of these 18 vehicles they're not registered. I mean, you don't abandon a registered car. So tracking the last registered owner is really an exercise in futility, for the same reason that the current state of the law, where we notify the last registered owner, not once, but twice, by certified mail while the car stays on the street and then while it takes up space on the lot. It 35 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 doesn't make any sense. The problem with these cars is, in many instances, these are unregistered, uninsured cars today; and then tomorrow, they're abandoned cars because they broke down, and no one's going to put another five cents into saving this piece of junk. So it's nothing scientific, but it's our belief that most of these cars are being stripped on the spot where they break down. To go back -- and we have done this and are doing more studies with Chief Bullock (ph.), who couldn't be here today for a family emergency. But his staff is doing these types of studies. And what we're finding is, finding out who the last registered owner is is useless because that person says, Well, I sold it to so and so-and-so, and there's obligation on the last registered owner to make sure that the new owner registers the vehicle. And there's no way to check whether he's telling the truth. You know, he can make up a name, or he can be the one who dumped it.
Right. Just in one other area. Are all 36 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 officers required, while on patrol, to be looking for these vehicles and to be writing them up? Or is it just the abandoned vehicle officer? I would imagine that -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Well, I mean, that was my -- when I first got here, that was my great question. Because when I looked at the different staff positions within each district, abandoned vehicles -- I said, Why would you need an officer for abandoned vehicles? That's everybody's responsibility. Well, it turns out it is, and as a result of a consent decree and a whole host of procedural steps, you need one specific officer to handle it. So the officer gets a report of an abandoned vehicle on day one. He walks out and says, Yep, that vehicle looks abandoned. He goes back in, goes out the next day, and if the vehicle's still there, he then begins the process of paperwork, of notifying that owner. That takes ten days. If the owner hasn't responded, the officer now goes out on day 12 and says, Yep, that's the same abandoned vehicle and then institutes the process. And so you need for 37 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 continuity, because of these silly regulations, a consent decree, which we've made steps now to get out from underneath that consent decree. And so we've created this bureaucratic maze that you wind up having to have a specialist to handle this. It should be that if any cop who's working his beat or sector finds an abandoned auto, if it's a derelict vehicle, he should be able to call, whatever it is, the Streets Department or somebody else and say, Get it out of there. Or if it's a regular abandoned vehicle, set up a pretty simple process of a three-day notification and notify the owner, Come get your car or else it's going to be towed away.
But does the uniformed officer on patrol have the requirement to begin that process? COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: No. He -- it's a joke. He notifies the abandoned vehicle officer.
But at least they're doing that. They're -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: But here's the problem you're under, here's the practical 38 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 problem. They drive down the street and they see an abandoned vehicle; they assume somebody else has done it. We we're now coming up with a -- the sticker to show that at least somebody started that process. People argue against the sticker. You say, But if you put the sticker on, people are going to think it's abandoned and they'll start stripping it. Yeah, that's what they've been doing anyway, so what's the problem? At least we'll be alerted with a day-glow sticker that, Listen, the process of notification has been begun.
Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, just one quick follow-up on Councilman Kenney's reference to chop shops. Are you telling us -- and correct me if I'm wrong. Are you telling us that the chop shops are not somehow affecting this abandoned vehicle problem? 'Cause it -- COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Oh, no, no. 39 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
I hear it's just the opposite. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: No, I'm sure they are. I'm saying there are two or three locations -- and I can't disclose those locations -- where we get information that they were taking them in, stripping them down, and then throwing the hulks in nearby streets. We actually set up pole cameras at two of those locations that were there overnight, and we didn't observe those cars coming after these particular -- they were body and fender places, rather large, coming out and depositing them in nearby streets. We did not observe that. I was just talking about three specific instances where that complaint was made to us and we set up pole cameras monitoring streets and we were not able to prove that case.
Okay. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: No, I guarantee that's what's happening. Proving it is another matter, however.
Commissioner, I know you have to go. Jim, I actually witnesses, with the 40 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 fire marshal, Ben Ramos and I, on Third and American Streets, a car being abandoned. And like ten minutes later, four people were coming in and trying to strip it. And they looked around, they saw the fire marshal, they looked, seemed surprised, and they kept on going, they kept on stripping it. Thank you, Commissioner. I know that you have to go. I appreciate it. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Yeah.
And I know that if you can give us, in terms of what we have discussed before in the spring, something that this committee can, with the Council, can then begin to look at as to what it is your recommendations have been, what the plan has been, so that then we can begin adding to our recommendations as a committee and moving forward. I know the union problematics that may be involved in removing this from the Police Department, but I really, really believe that this is not a law enforcement issue, that policemen should be going out and catching the bad guys, and 41 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 that we should have a department that takes care of abandoned vehicles in an efficient manner in the neighborhoods. Thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Thank you, sir.
State Representative Evans and State Senator Shelly Kitchen. By the way, the map that you gave us, Commissioner, it looks like the locusts have invaded the City. COMMISSIONER TIMONEY: Sometimes it's easier to put the streets up where there are no 14 abandoned vehicles.
But north-central and east of Broad and west of Broad seem to be being attacked much more forcefully than the rest of the City. (State witnesses come forward.)
Thank you. Would you please identify yourself for the record and decide who wishes to begin. Beauty before -- STATE REP. EVANS: Always.
Yes. STATE SEN. KITCHEN: Good morning, 42 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of Council. I'm State Senator Shirley Kitchen, representing the Third Senatorial District. STATE REP. EVANS: I'm State Representative Dwight Evans of the 203 Legislative District.
Kimberly Turner, staff of Representative Evans. STATE SEN. KITCHEN: Last June, I amended Act 75 of the Motor Vehicle Code, which did enact the changes that the Commissioner spoke of, which largely involve shortening removal time. Since that time, I planned to introduce a bill with much off the content and language of Representative Evans' bill, except that I do not know about the fines, the amount of fines. Right now, I think it's $50 per violation for a fine. And if we're talking about an increase in fines, I hope it's progressive because we do not want to burden people with fines that they cannot pay because of the implications it will have upon a person's life. Now, in the case of abandonment, as we 43 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 all know, most vehicles are abandoned because they aren't insured or they are not in repair. So if we are going to burden a person with fines equaling $500, they're not going to be able to pay it. In addition to that, they may not even be eligible for certain training programs. And also piggybacking off of what the Chairman said and also Councilman Kenney, is that it is a dumping problem in north-central Philadelphia. Some of the vehicles are being dumped from outer-lying counties, as opposed to just being abandoned. So the ownership will be in question. So it would not even be fair if we got off into such a punitive measure, charging $500 fines to a poor person who have abandoned the car in the first place. They won't be able to get into training to even pay the fine. So I just want to caution you how punitive we be in solving this matter. And in terms of the language of my bill, I'll turn it over to my distinguished senior colleague, who is the Appropriations Chair. And my language is identical to House Bill 2004. 44 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Distinguished colleague? STATE REP. EVANS: I want to, one, thank the members and Mr. Chairman and the members of the committee. As Senator Kitchen has indicated, that she, along with a number of other members, I'd like to do a couple things. First explain the specifics relating to House Bill 2004 and then talk a little bit about the politics of this particular issue and share some of those thoughts with you. Senator Kitchen indicated to you, correctly so, I think it was last year, that she made some changes in the Motor Vehicle Code, and there's no question that the changes that Senator Kitchen introduced certainly helped move the problem and deal with it in some way. Obviously, we have to go a lot more further than just some of the changes. During the summer, I worked along with Mayor Rendell, President Verna, and along with other members in the House in terms of coming up with House Bill 2004. House Bill 2004, as you see, the first thing you heard the Commissioner talk about was speeding up the process to remove 45 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 vehicles, as was indicated in his testimony, which has been a problem, moving it from seven days to immediate. The second aspect is abandoned cars from seven days to three days, and then changing the notification to place the vehicles, instead of certified mail, making it much more direct. The second aspect is speeding up the process of disposing the vehicles, reducing the days' notice, from 30 to days for vehicles, as 11 well as what you call "valueless vehicles," from 12 the 45 days for the salvagers to speeding up that 13 process. 14 In addition, we talked about increasing 15 the incentive for the salvagers. The Commonwealth 16 of Pennsylvania right now pays $15 per vehicle for 17 a salver to remove it. That was established back 18 in 1964. If you go based on inflation, it would 19 be about $72 today, looking from 1964 to 1999. 20 And that's why it's $72 in the bill, based on inflation, using that as incentive. In addition to that, yes, there are some penalties for individuals who dump vehicles, and those are something else that are a part of it.
In addition in this legislation, we talk 46 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 about the idea of empowering City government in a way be a salvager. One of the reasons we expressed that that option should be available -- and this would be up to you as Council and to the next mayor to make that determination, was, we think that there needs to be some competition in the system. There needs to be competition in the system in terms of private versus public, because my experience has been that the private-sector system has not resolved the problem. That not to say that there's not good salvagers out there, but currently the way the City's operating, they have salvagers. And that, in my view, is not 16 solving the problem. 17
But, State Representative, one of the problems has been that the salvagers have operated, as you said, on the market principle. As the price of metal has gone 00 if it goes up, they're out there removing vehicles because they can make a profit. If the price of metal is down, as it has been during the last period of years, they are not as quick to be out there removing vehicles because the profit 47 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 margin is not as great. And that I got from the Commissioner in a previous hearing and the City Department. STATE REP. EVANS: You are correct, Mr. Chairman. However, explaining that to a constituent who lives on Bouvier Street, they frankly could care less about what happens in terms of the salver making money or not make money, that's not the issue for them.
Right. STATE REP. EVANS: I think what I attempted to do in this legislation is basically to induce some sort of competition in the system, that where a salvager may not be responding to a particular problem, once you get a chance to read the legislation, which I've passed onto the President of City Council, my understanding is that she passed it out to everyone. You'll get the general sense that we're trying to induce a system which the bottom line is, the car will be removed -- may it by the salvager, may it be by the City. That decision -- and I heard some of your discussion earlier -- may be the Police Department, may be the Sanitation Department, the 48 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Parking Authority, whatever entity that you and members of this Council and the mayor decide, that's your decision. I think that the only thing we attempted to do in this legislation in the State is basically to empower you. Let me just tell you where the bill 8 is. There are 73 three cosponsors on the bill. The bill is in the Transportation Committee currently. Every Philadelphian has signed on to the bill. The Majority Leader, John Perzel, is for it. As Senator Kitchen indicated, she, along with Senator Tina Tartaglione, Senator Salvatore, and Senator Fumo, all of them are also on their side of the ledger, working on the same effort. So it is a collective effort. One thing I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, is that we can pass the best legislation in the world, but it really comes down the question of execution and delivery, and that is ultimately what the issue is about. The words on this paper are useless if we're going to make the changes in the system and actually not follow through on what we say that we're going to do. One last thing that I'd like to say to 49 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, this is not a problem unique to Philadelphia. I have a letter of support from the police chief of Pittsburgh, Erie, York, Lancaster. They also have this kind of a problem. As a matter of fact, to your point when you asked about the police issue, in Erie, the police commissioner made a recommendation that salvers, rather than using police officers, are empowered to do what police officers do here. Where police officers in Erie basically do the same thing, what the police commissioner suggested in Erie is that you empower the salvers. However, you also may have some sleazy individuals. There's a statement in this bill 17 that if a salver should just try to, for some unfortunate reason, just pick up a car that doesn't belong, they can easily be penalized, the authority can be taken away from them. So when you read in there, there's a section in there that talks about the aspect of empowering salvers so that you don't have this issue dealing with the police force. That came from the chief in Erie, because he felt that he 50 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 didn't have the manpower in order to have police officers doing it.
That's interesting. STATE REP. EVANS: So I'll be open to any questions that you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, State Senator Kitchen and Representative Evans. STATE REP. EVANS: Thank you.
The statement about cosponsorship of the bill. You mentioned you had 73 cosponsors? STATE REP. EVANS: Correct.
And in order to get -- I'm assuming that this would be an increase in the State funding required to bring this up to $72. STATE REP. EVANS: Correct, $72, correct. 51 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
So -- and my understanding is we need how many votes? STATE REP. EVANS: You need 102 in the House.
102? STATE REP. EVANS: And you need in 8 the Senate. 9
So the lack of the 10 102 number probably has more to do with your 11 inability to get the 102 to sign this, or do we 12 anticipate a problem? 13 STATE REP. EVANS: No, I would have had 14 the 102, but since I wanted to introduce it, it 15 was there. 16 This -- I don't foresee this as a 17 problem once it comes up on the floor. What's 18 amazing about this is, though we talk about it as 19 a problem in Philadelphia, as I indicated to you, 20 from Erie and York, they also have the problem -- 21 not to the degree that Philadelphia has it as a 22 problem, but they realize that something that 23 needs to be done also. 24 To your question that you asked about 25 the increase of costs, that comes from the Motor 52 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 License Fund.
Okay. STATE REP. EVANS: Which is no cost to local government; Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would be paying that.
So we fully anticipate we'll be able to get the additional dollars for this? STATE REP. EVANS: Correct, correct.
Great. The other issue, you mentioned -- you talked about how sometimes, it's the private versus public sector. This particular hearing happened as a result of a resolution that members of this Council cosponsored, and it talked about the RFP process essentially creating an environment where an entity, or entities, could create a proposal that would basically give us an opportunity to select the person that could do the job the best. Is that kind of what you're kind of talking about as related to creating some competition? STATE REP. EVANS: My experience is that the City at one time used to tow the cars 53 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 themselves. I think it was under the Bill Green administration that it changed and that it went to the private sector. I think the problem has been that no 6 one has evaluated the system, first; and, secondly, no one has held the system accountable. So what happens is, over the last, in my view, eight or nine years, the problem has gotten out of control. And now we're at this particular point where people are now starting to ask questions about it, 'cause no one's on top of it. The Police Department is overburdened, the Streets Department doesn't focus on it, L&I doesn't. But I want to give you an example, Councilman Clarke. There was an abandoned house in the 12th Division of the 10th Ward. And this house was abandoned for 15 years. There were two abandoned cars on the back of the property, in the back of the driveway. The Police Department could not remove the cars because the house was abandoned, and it was L&I. So then I go to L&I, and L&I says, We can't remove it. So here you got two cars on an abandoned property, and we go back and forth in terms of trying to get this car 54 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 moved. That is ridiculous. I mean, the people who lived in that block did not want to hear the jurisdiction battle between Licenses and Inspections and the Police Department. Now, fortunately, through the creativity of the Police Commissioner and some other people, we eventually got 'em moved, but that shouldn't have to happen.
Right. STATE REP. EVANS: So I'm just saying to you that there are problems like that. And what we're trying to do is, we're trying to -- we have some language in here that even deals with the issue about public property in terms of letting people be more aggressive about dealing with these particular issues. Because, again, the people in the neighborhood don't want don't want to hear this jurisdiction battle between the Police Department and Licenses and Inspections or the Parking Authority or the State not doing what it needs to do to --
It's red tape, the red tape. 55 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
Yeah. STATE REP. EVANS: Exactly. They don't want to hear that.
Yes. Senator Kitchen, your district encompasses a larger area, larger than any of our Council districts. And if I'm correct, you probably have upwards of five police districts, and a lot of those police districts have been inundated with vehicles. Have you noticed a pattern in terms of the level of response that you get per police district based on the, frankly speaking, the captain of the district or the abandoned vehicle officers? Has it differed based on who's in charge of that police district, or is it pretty much uniform? STATE SEN. KITCHEN: It differs in terms of blocks and neighborhoods where there's a great deal of abandonment of vacant houses and vacant cars. And if a committee person calls, then it's a slow response, but if it's abandoned in front of an occupied, fully intact block, then it appears to be a faster response. 56 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
Okay, so -- STATE SEN. KITCHEN: So it's more or less by what condition the block is in, how many calls, you know, are being received by the Police Department. In the areas where this is a great deal of vacancy, there is a great deal of dumping. And I don't think it's so much as abandonment by neighborhood residents, because there's no 11 residents on the block, but rather, the abandonment from outer-lying areas, and it appears to be right outside of Philadelphia.
It's some of that squeaky wheel theory. STATE SEN. KITCHEN: Yeah, the squeaky wheel theory.
Thank you. Senator, Representative, in Philadelphia County, we have roads that are designated State highways, and I know you talk 57 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 about jurisdiction, about who fixes them and who removes the snow, and I know we have an arrangement with the State when it pertains to snow. Do you -- could you explain what responsibility the Commonwealth has in helping pay for the removal of abandoned vehicles that may be dropped on a State highway, the ones that we have identified? Could there be some financial help in removing vehicles that are on State highways? STATE REP. EVANS: Well, the Commonwealth already does pay the $15 to the salver in the first place. What I'm suggesting is that the $15 be increased to $72, first. Secondly, it's up to the local jurisdiction to decide how exactly you want to remove abandoned vehicles. I mean, either you do it through salvers or you do it through your Parking Authority or you do it through your Police Department. But basically, the State government pays the $15, which I hope, through some negotiations, I will get it to be $72, which, in itself, will be an added incentive for the salvers 58 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 to do what they have to do.
But you see no 4 additional support or funding from the State on vehicles that are on State highways, like Broad Street, which -- Commissioner Moy can shake his head -- is a State highway? Yesterday, on my way to Temple Hospital, I said this earlier, at Broad and Sedgley, there's a totally burned-out vehicle there, and it's obviously been there for a long time. On that particular instance, couldn't, since it's a State highway, the State be responsible or help fund the removal of that vehicle? STATE REP. EVANS: Councilman, what I'm saying to you is that the State pays already. I'm trying to get it increased to $72.
So bump it up a little. STATE REP. EVANS: Are you saying that because it's on top on a State road that you think 59 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 it should be more than $72?
I'm just looking for a way for us to get more support from the State. STATE REP. EVANS: Well, I don't think that --
Well, I think that's in process now. If it's now and it's going to 9 go up to 72, I think that's a huge increase in 10 terms of support. 11
That's non-state 12 highways. Understand -- 13 STATE REP. EVANS: No, that's 14 anywhere. 15
Anywhere. STATE REP. EVANS: That's anywhere -- that's a City highway, that's a State highway, that's a federal highway. It's anywhere in the Commonwealth.
I'm looking for 150 on a State highway. STATE REP. EVANS: Oh.
Well, you're never going to get that. 60 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Councilman Nutter?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning, Representative Evans and Senator Kitchen and your good friend at the table there. Representative Evans, I have had a chance to read through the legislation, and one of the things I wanted to ask about was with regard to -- I know you have a fines and penalty section 11 stating that it's a crime to abandon a vehicle, and I think there's also some provisions for license suspension. What I wanted to ask was with regard to the ability of that person to subsequently register another vehicle, is there a way to track that once a person has been -- I'll kind of use the vernacular -- "popped" for abandoning a vehicle, and if you have license suspension provisions, is there anything that you can do about that person's ability to either register the new car when they haven't taken care of the previous car that we actually keep track through PennDOT, that when that person's name or, I guess, his license number comes up, it tells PennDOT that 61 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 this is a person who has abandoned a previous vehicle, And we impact their ability to re-register a new car. STATE REP. EVANS: Councilman Nutter, the answer is yes to your question. The way that it would probably be the most efficient way to do it would be coordinating in terms of regulations within the Department of Transportation, versus actually detailing that in the legislation. I do agree with you that, you know, you can find people who are very creative in trying to find new way to how to manipulate the system.
Right. STATE REP. EVANS: So although my colleague and I -- and we haven't finished having this debate, this discussion. The attempt to be punitive or some aspect is really to see how we can, you know, slow this process down.
Right. STATE REP. EVANS: I mean, as the Chairman indicated and the Police Commissioner, 1200 cars was removed. And as Councilman Kenney raised, those cars are coming from somewhere.
Right. 62 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 STATE REP. EVANS: So I think we have to have a two-pronged approach. Yes, we got to have a much more efficient system to remove them, but we've also got to say to those individuals, and I think you heard the Police Commissioner talk about the whole culture of the Police Department not enforcing the traffic laws, so I think there has to be a coordination between what the Police Commissioner talked about, what we're going to talk about with some penalties. It's not the idea that you just want to be punitive for the sake of being punitive, but you do want to say to people that you just can't just go around leaving these cars laying all over the streets of the City of Philadelphia.
Just one financial inquiry, and I'm assuming the legislation passes and the increase from $15 to $72 on the salvers' fee. Did I read maybe either in the legislation or in the newspaper that those increased dollars are coming from either the License Fund or some other fund within the State? STATE REP. EVANS: It comes from the Motor License Fund. 63 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
Okay. So that's when you renew your license, and I guess it's $36 now or thereabouts. STATE REP. EVANS: Well, the Motor License Fund consists of money that comes from gas tax, license, all of that.
Okay. STATE REP. EVANS: And it's a fund that's off budget. So basically, that's a fund that's independent, and it pays for anything that's related to other license issues.
One last question. There was the big announcement last week, and maybe it's not a part of this particular package of legislation, but I do understand that the State is also proposing to move forward with getting the stickers, registration stickers off of the plate. And do you anticipate a now third sticker on the windshield, or that one of the two stickers that -- you currently have a regular registration sticker and you have an emissions sticker, most cars. Or people with the older cars, like me, have two stickers on their vehicle. Do you anticipate it being incorporated 64 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 into that, or is there now going to be a third sticker on the windshield? STATE REP. EVANS: I couldn't speak to specifically the legislation that Senator Fumo is introducing in terms of how does he see the configuration. But what he basically wants to do is, you know, individuals have been removing the sticker off the back of the car, like 20,000 in the City of Philadelphia.
Right. STATE REP. EVANS: There was a task force, my understanding, that Senator Fumo's staff was a part of that task force in terms of PennDOT. There's a little of what I should call "a family internal battle" going on between the legislature and the Department of Transportation around this issue about where the sticker should go. My general sense is that PennDOT is saying no, that --
Could you tell me why? Why do they care? STATE REP. EVANS: Well, it's very similar, Councilman, to -- for example, when the City does sweeps for removing abandoned cars, 65 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 PennDOT only has two people. When the Police Department submits this form that has to have a VIN number on it, there's only two people who have that responsibility. There's one to deal with the City of Philadelphia and one to deal with the rest of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But for us, we can use both of them. So it becomes a bureaucratic thing. So we have to kind of use our political muscle by using legislation. We have tried to convince the Secretary of Transportation and others that this is a problem. And just because it's a problem in Philadelphia, we don't want them to take the attitude that, Well, it's not important. So, in other words, they look at it around the tag issue that you just described. Well, it's only in Philadelphia, so why should we deal with it? So that's why I do agree with Senator Fumo and the Mayor in terms of that change. One other thing I want to add to this point. What we tried to do with the announcement that the Mayor made, and I've had some conversations with Mayor-elect Street, is I think 66 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 for the first time, we're trying to have a collective agenda on the whole vehicle, quality of life initiative, something which I don't think we've had collectively. And when I met with the Mayor and the Mayor-elect, as well as meeting with President Verna, I indicated that we need to collectively work with you here in Council so we can kind of know what the right and left hand is doing, because basically, historically, we haven't done that. And I think that the issues around vehicles in general, we got a lot of work to do. We need to -- you know, don't want to duplicate anything already that you're doing, we don't want duplicate it; we just want to figure out how we can make it look more efficient, how we can make it a little bit more effective.
Last question. Is there anything in the legislation that would be a barrier to the proposal and what is essentially the main component of today's resolution, as proposed by Councilman Clarke, that would interfere with the City's ability, if we chose to go into that direction, of having at least one, 67 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 and some districts may have two, the kind of RFP process, you know, "Salver XYZ" works for me at the 19th District. STATE REP. EVANS: Right.
That's their area, that's their responsibility. I mean, it's almost kind of like a franchise. But if there's an abandoned car out there and it hasn't been moved, then either the captain, some civilian, whoever's in charge of the program get in Salver XYZ's case that you haven't picked up these cars, and it is your responsibility. Is there anything in the legislation that impacts our ability to either do that or have people who are salvers, whose business is located outside the City of Philadelphia, to participate in any of these programs? STATE REP. EVANS: The answer is no. I made sure, Councilman, that I, the chairman, in no 22 way wanted to have the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania micro-manage direct as the City or the Council or the Mayor in any way. So we're not interested, Michael. 68 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Anything we wanted to do was to basically empower and streamline the process, add a little bit of money. Sorry to Councilman Rizzo that left, but we wanted to add a little bit of money and some incentive. So no, we're not trying to tell you how you want to set it up; we're not even trying to tell you what agency that you want to decide -- if it's L&I, Streets Department, Sanitation, whatever department you want to do, that's up to the local government to decide. The only thing we're trying to do is limit the days, add some money, empower the people who do what's necessary, but we don't want to micro-manage it in any way. That's not my position.
We've got the legal tools needed in order to be able to expedite the process, and we've also got the responsibility to establish the regulations, the process, and the qualifications for salvers. And through that legislation, if I'm correct, we are the entity that will establish qualifications for salvers. We are the entity 69 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 that would put the regulations together as to how they do it, when they do it, and in what process and through which agency. STATE REP. EVANS: Correct.
That comes down to local entity and local government to be able to put forward. STATE REP. EVANS: Correct.
And that would be through legislation and regulations in City Council. STATE REP. EVANS: Correct. One other thing I want to make mention of, particularly to Councilman Clarke, Mr. Chairman. Right now, you have 17 salvagers. You can actually have salvagers -- what is it, ten miles? About salvagers in a 30-mile radius could actually. Now, those who have been here may get a little upset over a little competition, but, you know, I think our interest has to be the outcome. And the outcome is the car.
Our interest is to 70 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 eliminate the locusts. STATE REP. EVANS: So what I'm saying is, may it be here, maybe within a 30-mile 5 radius, you decide whatever agency it is, and then 6 we increase the dollar amount. You know, at the 7 end of the day, we can actually say to our 8 constituents, In Chicago -- which was just told me 9 top by the EPOP group -- they have kind of a 10 commitment that in an hour and a half -- I mean, 11 it would be nice if we could say to John or Jane 12 Q. Philadelphia that in an hour, or in an hour and 13 a half, if your car's not removed, you're going to 14 get your money back you know, your portion of your 15 wage tax. I betcha that would be some incentive 16 if we said to people, We're going to give 17 something back to them if you don't get the car removed. So I think you -- and I'm very sincere about the level of -- you know, it's great to have laws, but it's the execution.
And I just want to say to you and the senator that usually the relationship between Harrisburg and the City has been one in which Harrisburg tries to take away 71 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 some of our powers to legislate and implement. And here, I would like to thank you for trying to give us some tools to be able to legislate and implement. So I want to thank you for doing that and introducing that legislation, and I hope this passes very quickly. Thank you very much. STATE REP. EVANS: If I could ask something of you Mr. Chairman.
Yeah. STATE REP. EVANS: Maybe you and members of the Council -- and I have not said this to your President of your City Council, but I would appreciate it if you would collectively -- it doesn't have to be a resolution, but sent a nice letter collectively to all of the people. One to the majority leader of the House so that he can have that on record, and the chairman of the Transportation Committee, that you collectively, you know, if you are in support of this legislation --
We will do that, sir. STATE REP. EVANS: Good. The sooner 72 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 the better.
We will do it this week, sir. STATE REP. EVANS: Thank you.
I would appreciate it if I could ask a follow-up question.
I just have one quick follow-up question. I just want to know for the record, when we talk about salvers, could you just explain? One of the problems that we're having is that when a vehicle is first identified as abandoned, that vehicle is a very valuable commodity. What happens after it sits a week, ten days, the windshield gets broken, the starter gets stolen, the air-conditioning compressor gets stolen. The most important -- what the salvers tell me is that if they could get access to these vehicles, they would be more responsive if they could get it with all those components, before the wheels are gone, before the windshield's smashed. 73 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 This legislation will permit how quickly once a vehicle is reported abandoned that the salver can respond and take it away. Because, believe me, a salver can make a lot of money on a car if it's not stripped and they tow it back to their yard and start to dismantle it. A front windshield is worth a lot of money. How quickly can we start moving these cars with this legislation? STATE REP. EVANS: Councilman, that car you talked about on Broad Street that was burned out?
Right. STATE REP. EVANS: Based on the current law, current City law and current State law, that should immediately be removed. The car that you are talking about on Broad Street, under your current City ordinance, and under your current State law, that car should be removed right away. The problem has been historically is that it's not removed right away, 'cause if it's burned out, I could imagine what it looks like. There's no value to it so it's not removed. So I'm saying to you that we could do 74 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 all of these changes, but that car should be removed right now.
But two months ago when, that car first appeared, that car had a value. It was a late model Ford Taurus. Now it has no windshield, now the hood's gone. Now the engine is being dismantled. Three months ago, a salver, if he was able to take away before it got into that condition, had a vehicle, I'll bet, worth a couple thousand dollars. STATE REP. EVANS: Yeah, I understand, but I think -- you know, Mr. Chairman, and I say this to you all very sincerely, 'cause I know you go through the same thing we go through in Harrisburg. It would be nice, and you asked the right question. We don't need to describe the problem, we don't need to rehash it.
Right. STATE REP. EVANS: We need to talk about a solution. It would be nice if we collectively could make a pledge to the people in this city that if there's a car, there's a certain 75 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 period of time that car is going to be removed. If not, if the car is not going to be removed, there has to be some sense of consequence. The problem is there's no sense of a consequence. So, Councilman Rizzo, I mean, we could report it, and the car's reported, but there's no 8 consequence on anybody if a car's not removed.
I want to move on. My point being, with the new legislation, the vehicle that is not burned out, that is not a hulk, right now, we've got the ten-day notification period. When will it change? STATE REP. EVANS: It's seven days, seven days.
We're going to speed it up by three. STATE REP. EVANS: By three days.
But what you say is import, if we do it in a timely fashion, it won't be a hulk, it won't be burnt out. STATE REP. EVANS: Correct.
It will have a higher value to the salver, which will give them an incentive to get out there and get it, because 76 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 they can strip it and make a lot of money.
But there has to also be -- if a car is in regular, good condition, what we need to do is have the tools to speed up the process of identification. Because if you, by accident, go out and take a car that belongs to someone that has parked it there, then you got a lawsuit on your hands. STATE REP. EVANS: Correct, correct.
And that's why we have the consent decree -- STATE REP. EVANS: Correct.
-- that we are operating under because a lot of salvers in the 1980s went into poor neighborhoods, specifically in north-central Philadelphia, and took cars that belonged to someone, that were not abandoned, but were just parked in front of a car for like a week or so. And that's why we have the consent decree a. We got to have the speeded-up process, a streamlined process in which we identify the owner, registration, and we're able to communicate with those cars that are intact or in somewhat 77 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 good shape. And those are the tools that you are giving us at this time. STATE REP. EVANS: And the other thing, Mr. Chairman, that we're trying to do, there's the issue around the VIN number, which is a number that usually a police officer has to locate. What we're suggesting under this legislation is that if there happens not to be a VIN number, 'cause it could be a car like that, that we should take the word of the police officer, that they have to, you know, sign something in order to say that they could not locate or identify, rather than, you know, you can't find it 'cause the car's really destroyed. So what we're trying to do is strike a balance. We're trying to strike a balance; we're not trying to have a situation where, as the Chairman just described it, we go too far. We're trying to strike a balance to meet the objectives to get the cars off that street.
And I want to thank you again for the tools, I want to thank you for doing that. And the letters of -- Councilman Clarke, go ahead. 78 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Evans, that vehicle that Councilman Rizzo talked about, isn't, in reality, the reason why that car is still there is because nobody's obligated to pick it up? STATE REP. EVANS: Correct.
All right. That's all. STATE REP. EVANS: I mean, it should be. Technically, if it's been reported, I don't know if the Councilman checked on it. One, if it's reported and then the police officer comes out and validate it and they write down that information and send to it PennDOT, technically, the salver should be picking it up. That's who should be picking it up. But going back to the point that the Chairman mentioned earlier, when you get into the market costs of metal and other things, if somebody don't see the value in it, then nobody's picking it up. So really, truthfully speaking, the salver should be picking that up, but they're 79 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 not. I don't know why, but they're not picking it up.
And I will draft a letter and I will send it out this week. STATE REP. EVANS: Thank you.
Could the City, in mass, come forward. (City witnesses come forward.)
Chairman Ortiz, members of the Committee on Public Safety, my name is Stephanie Franklin-Suber. I am City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia. Thank you for inviting me here today to testify on the process for removing abandoned vehicles from our City streets. In particular, Darryl Clarke asked me to testify about the federal court consent decree that currently governs the City's procedure for removing 80 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 abandoned vehicles. I'm happy to summarize the procedures in the consent decree, but I think it's very important, before I do that, to inform the members of the committee that at the request of Commissioner Timoney, my office has already reviewed the consent decree and examined the possibility of moving to vacate the consent decree. We believe we have strong arguments in support of that. I have made that recommendation to Mayor-elect Street, and I have been authorized to advise the committee publicly that he supports my plan to go into federal court and to move to vacate the consent decree. We hope that the other parties to the decree would join with the City in its request to vacate, but even if they oppose it, we are prepared to immediately take that action.
I think the problem really has been solved. It was in the '70s, the late '70s when we had really a problem in poor neighborhoods -- specifically in Kensington and in north-central Philadelphia, where the police would just go in with salvers and take people's cars 81 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 that were not abandoned. And Legal Services -- I was in Legal Services at that time, and Jonathon Stein and myself and other folks at that time this case into courts. So, you know, I don't think that we have that type of police department any long are.
I would be happy to summarize the procedures in the consent decree, if the committee is interested in that.
All right. By way of background, the consent decree is a settlement of class action litigation. And it was brought by, as Chairman Ortiz, mentioned Community Legal Services on behalf of ten named plaintiffs. And they basically made two claims. Number one, their cars had been towed off the streets by the Police Department, without any notice at all to the owners that the cars were even considered abandoned. And number two, the Police Department then disposed of those vehicles without giving the owners a chance to even reclaim them. 82 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 So in 1981, 1981, in addition to entering into the consent decree, the City also agreed to pay the named plaintiffs a certain dollar-amount by way of monetary settlement, and that was $29,000. Basically, the plaintiffs' claim was based on the right to due process guaranteed by the constitution. Generally speaking, as required by the courts, requires government to give notice and an opportunity for a hearing before you can simply seize someone's property, unless, of course, there's some legitimate or public-safety concern that the government has to address and that precludes us from giving notice. Notice by the government prior to seizing property gives the vehicle owner the opportunity to cure the violation. So, for example, the vehicle owner can move the car. Or to contest the validity of the violation, for example, by explaining why the car is located where it is, that it is not abandoned, etc. But after more than three years of litigation, the parties settled in 1981. The consent decree is still in effect 83 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 today. The consent decree will remain in effect indefinitely unless we take affirmative action by going to the court and asking the court to vacate the decree, modify the decree, or at least give the City permission to be relieved of the restrictions and avoid the consent decree's requirements. Generally speaking, the consent decree governs four different aspects of the process for removing vehicles, abandoned vehicles. Number one, towing without notice. Number two, notice prior to towing when the police are able to identify the owner of the vehicle. Number three, notice prior to towing, where the owner cannot be identified. And, finally, an additional notice after the vehicle has been towed. With respect to towing without notice, the consent decree does allow the Police Department to remove abandoned vehicles without prior notice where there is an imminent safety or health hazard, or when the vehicle has been used in the commission of a crime. But in all other circumstances, the consent decree requires basically two levels, two 84 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 stages of notice -- before towing and after towing.
And is there a period in which a car can be -- that process begins after a car has been notified to the Police Department?
Yes. Where the owner can be identified, the police have to mail notice to the last registered owner, and the owner has to have ten days' notice to remove the car, or else the police will remove it. But notice can't even be mailed unless the Police Department believes the vehicle has been unattended on the street for at least 48 hours. So there has to be, in the first instance, a 48-hour period where the car is left unattended on the street. That makes the vehicle abandoned, under the State Vehicle Code. Then the officer can mail the notice. And in addition, the car is stickered with a, you know, bright-colored sticker that also gives notice. Where the owner cannot be identified, the Police Department, again, has to observe the 48-hour period and then can sticker the car. And 85 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 clearly, because they can't identify the owner, they're not required to mail notice. After the abandoned vehicle has been towed, within 72 hours, if the owner can be identified, the police have to send the owner additional notice. The notice has to explain to the owner that the vehicle has been seized because it's been abandoned, that it will returned to the owner if he or she provides proof of ownership within 30 days, so it allows 30 more days. And the owner is notified that the car may be sold for scrap or destroyed after 30 days. The notice procedures established by the consent decree, certainly from the perspective of the Police Department, are cumbersome, they're onerous, and they at least impact and slow down the process for removing abandoned vehicles from the street. But as I mentioned at the beginning of my testimony, my office plans on requesting that the court vacate the constraints imposed by the decree. Of course, that's not going to remove all the impediments.
When are we doing 86 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 this?
Thank you. Commissioner? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Good morning. My name is Louis Applebaum. I'm the Procurement Commissioner of the City of Philadelphia. I suggest that the City issue a competitive bid for the towing of abandoned vehicles, in accordance with House Bill 2004. We should make awards by police district and to a sufficient number of towing companies within each district. Towers could bid on only the sections that they desire. The bid document would require prequalification and information such as having all necessary licenses and certificates. They must be engaged in the towing business, they must maintain adequate storage facilities, and they must also have adequate and sufficient equipment. They must submit insurance certificates and attend 87 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 prebid meetings to make sure that all people will understand the process. The bid document should be very specific in identifying the scope of services. These should be in great details, including specific time requirements so that there can be no 8 disagreement of what is required. Salvagers not following the requirements would be defaulted and removed from the list. This competitive document --
Have we ever removed any salvers from the list? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Not that I know of. This document could be very similar to a document --
I assume, then, that every salver has followed the requirements and are -- COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: There are two programs that we have now. One program is salvers for the towing of stolen vehicles. That was issued as a competitive bid, and we have a document covering all of the rules and 88 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 regulations. There is one other document that was issued by the Law Department, which we call a "no-fee agreement" with salvers for abandoned cars.
How many salvers do we have right now in the contract? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: On the abandoned cars, I think there's or 17. 11
16 or 17. 12 COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: 16 to 17 13 various -- 14
Are there other 15 salvers other than those 17? 16 COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Oh, there aren't many other salvers, but it's very difficult to get people to come to the program when they're only getting paid $15 a vehicle.
And that's because of the price of metal. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Well, not even the price of metal; it's just that $15 is not sufficient to compensate them for removing the vehicles. 89 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 The documents could, as I mentioned, be similar to the document and bid that we have for towing and storage of recovered stolen vehicles. The City could, within this document, designate the flat fee that will be similar to the fee that eventually will be passed in House Bill 8 2004. So I would recommend that if it's $72, we would indicate in this document that you will get paid $72 for each vehicle, hopefully the State would reimburse the City, and the City would pay the salvers that particular fee. That amount, I think, will bring more people to the party and will get them to respond, and most important, respond in a timely basis that they remove the cars based on the program that we have developed, and they do it within the next 18 hours, or whatever program we can work on. 19
The salvers work 20 directly with the Police Department, the Police Department contacts the salver once an abandoned car has been identified; is that correct? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: That's what I understand, yes, sir. That happens after this whole process that was just outlined by the City 90 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Solicitor. They then notify a salver. They have a whole list of --
And the responsibility of the salver is to respond in what period of time? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: As I know it, there is no specific requirements.
So if I'm the policeman in charge of abandoned cars in the 25th District, and I get a notice of an abandoned car on American Street and Ontario or on Third and Ontario. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Right.
And I call "Salver A," and I say, Look, I want you to go over there and remove this car. There are two cars over there, and I want to them removed, okay? I have no way, as a policeman, as the policeman in charge of abandoned cars, I have no 21 way of saying to that salver, I need to do that within hours, I need to do that within 48 23 hours. And if I say I need it done immediately or 24 in 24 hours, what happens to the salver if it's not done in 24 hours? 91 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: To the best of my knowledge, the Police Department has no 4 leverage over the salvers to have them perform and respond. If the salver decides not to come or not to come within that day, there are no penalties, there's no leverage at all.
So then let's say the community -- COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: What we're suggesting is that this would be a lucrative contract, and the salvers would be earning 72 --
But I'm talking about right now. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Right now, there's no leverage at all.
And let's say, then, that "Community Group X" gets angry and comes back to the Police Department and says something, and the police says, We have no leverage. And then they come down to Councilman Clarke's office and they say, Look, you've got to do this, all right? You got to remove those cars because that's what happens. If nothing happens, what leverage do we have? 92 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: As I mentioned before, basically, we have no leverage.
Do we call, then, Commissioner Moy? Because that's what I would do then. I would say, Can you get one of your trucks to get over and remove that car? And we did that at one point. We went up to Third Street -- and remember, I think we had to remove some cars from up there because the salvers could not do it. (Commissioner Moy comes forward.) COMMISSIONER MOY: We have very limited capability within the Department to do that, but we can do an isolated case. You know, it's just the Police Department on that.
But you have no 18 capacity at the present time to be able to remove any of those abandoned cars? COMMISSIONER MOY: We really don't have any capacity. You know, Fleet Management and the Parking Authority have the iron, the equipment there to handle that, but we have no tow trucks as such. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Now, the 93 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Police Department does have some tow trucks. Whether they call upon their own to do that work or not, I really don't know.
So then, do we then call up the Commissioner and say, Look, we need your tow trucks to be able to go over there and remove those cars? So then, instead of having one police officer removing cars, we have like four police officers removing abandoned vehicles. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: You're exactly right, Councilman. And I don't believe that the Police Department's tow trucks have the capability of removing hulks if they're not on tires. I think you need a flatbed, and I don't believe they have flatbeds.
And the Parking Authority doesn't have those type of trucks either, right? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: I -- I don't know. I -- COMMISSIONER MOY: I think they've got more capability than the police in terms of towing them with flatbeds.
But the Parking 94 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Authority's not under -- according to this City Solicitor, the Parking Authority doesn't have any jurisdiction within its charter, as such, to be an enforcement agency of car removal in the City, of abandoned cars.
In the new proposal, one of the frustrations that the Police Department's experiencing, and Commissioner Moy, I believe, has tried to cooperate, but I don't know if it's been official developed, where the car that Councilman Ortiz described, with the Christmas trees and debris. How are we going to deal with the salver that pulls up and it's a vehicle full of trash? I know that we've tried to -- we've had to physically coordinate with the Sanitation Division and the salver to go clean the car. Could we formalize that condition, when a salver arrives, how we deal with that, rather 95 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 than the salver expend the time go out there and say, I'm not touching this car 'cause there could be a dead body in it? How are we going to deal with that issue that has frustrated every captain in the Philadelphia Police Department that's responsible for abandoned automobiles? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Well, I would recommend that the responsibility would be upon the salver to remove that vehicle, no matter what, which, realize, the fee that he's going to earn is really more than they are expecting or anticipate. So this will be a valuable contract to them. And if there are one or two situations that are more difficult than the others, they will have to handle that in order to stay on that contract. And I believe they all would want to be a part of that contract.
Commissioner, in all due respect, I know many of these salvers, and they tell me that they will not touch a vehicle that is full of trash because they don't know what they're dealing with in there. They've found dead dogs, they've found you name it -- I wouldn't even 96 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 want to describe some of the things they tell me they find. If you don't have that formalized in there and identify the responsibility in the process, you're going to have a problem once this is implemented. So my suggestion to you is to address that issue and work it out, because I think the Commissioner has been very supportive. His Sanitation people have coordinated with the salver. Because if they clean that car out two days on a Monday and that salver doesn't get to it by Wednesday, it's full of trash again. Those cars have become waste receptacles. I saw -- I was riding up Fifth Street. I saw a car that had a sun roof, and the occupants in it actually opened the sun roof and tossed the soft drink cup right into the abandoned automobile, and it was almost filled. You might have to put plastic bags in some of these abandoned cars. But if that car is cleaned on Monday and it's not taken away on Monday, by Wednesday, it's a problem again. So, in my opinion, that should be something that's understood, and there's no 97 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 confusion, no gray area when it comes to the salver's responsibility. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Well, I agree with you. And the specifics and specifications of the bid document will have to be very clear and cover those issues, and it will have to be a joint effort between the Police Department and the Department of Procurement to get together and do it right.
The Streets Department, in my opinion, has gone beyond the call of duty, and I don't think they've gotten any funding for what they do. They've gone out, and I don't know what area salvers stood by while they cleaned them up and took them away. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: And that's the details we'll have to work out.
Miss Suber, the responsibilities of tagging, so to speak, of these vehicles. Right now, we currently have a system where we use the Police Department to write up abandoned vehicles, and the issue came up about what would be required to possibly get some 98 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 civilian personnel or some other entity in City government to take that responsibility. Legally, can you give us a sense of what's required, if it was based on this program that we're formulating, if we decided that we would prefer to see some other entity in government do the actual writing up of the tickets? Legally, where do we stand with respect to the unions, the bargaining agreement, the whole nine yards as it relates to how we deploy personnel. Can you give us a sense of that?
I'm not prepared to give you a sense of that at the moment, but I'm certainly prepared to do that once I understand the particulars of all of the proposals. I did not have the benefit of hearing all of the testimony. Certainly --
Well, what we asked the Commissioner was -- I don't know if you were here when the Commissioner was here.
We asked him essentially, and the Chairman basically said that 99 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 the Police Department is a resource that we need to have out there fighting crime, and I think we all agree to that.
And the Commissioner alluded to the fact that his preference is to have them do that, but he indicated that it would have something to do with the unions as it relates to changing that process. And he also indicated that he thought the FOP would have concerns about officers not having that responsibility anymore, and I'm just trying to get a sense legally of where we would stand if the Council decided that we wanted to change that function.
Yeah. Is there -- and maybe you can give it to us and look at the bargaining agreement between the FOP and the City. Because we're not talking about decreasing the amount of personnel in the Police Department. I just believe that we right now have police that are not doing police work, that could be doing police work, and that perhaps another department -- maybe Sanitation, if we then give them the 100 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 capacity, that would mean giving them some tow trucks and being able to do this to be able to do that task. Is there anything within the bargaining agreement that would prevent this Council from moving forward with the next mayor to say that we are establishing a Department of Abandoned-Car Removal, under the Sanitation Department or under the Managing Director's Department, all right? And that they will be responsible. Is there anything in the bargaining agreement of the Police Department that would prevent us from legislating and putting that forward?
Councilman Ortiz, I'm going to treat your question like Councilman Clarke Clark's question, as a request for advice and an opinion from my office to the members of the committee.
I would like you to do that. Thank you. I would like to see that. I would appreciate that.
Miss Suber, one other follow-up question. 101 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 With respect to representative Evans' proposal that would have salvers have the ability to go onto privately-owned vacant lots to remove abandoned vehicles, and I know in the past that only the City's Department of Licenses and Inspections has the ability to abate a nuisance on an abandoned, privately-owned lot. Where would we stand legally with respect to the City's governing powers to do that?
We have not looked at that question in relation to the pending legislation. We will do that, and I can give you a response to that question as well.
Are there any other questions? (No further questions.) Commissioner? COMMISSIONER MOY: My name is Lawrence Moy. I'm the Commissioner of Streets. Councilman Clarke asked us to address some activities in the abandoned cars and how they affect our mission and how they affect our operation. And we can be brief there. 102 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 The first issue is traffic. For the most part, when the abandoned cars are in a traffic lane there, we get very good action by the police, and it's generally not a long-lasting problem. I think most of the abandoned cars, as we know, are in the parking lanes. The second area, those, is in terms of our operations in resurfacing. As you're maybe aware, we have a milling operation that precedes resurfacing, generally. We're confronted at that time with frequently removing any cars that are not moved in order to mill and work on the streets. We usually have a vendor tow truck operator that we pay in order to relocate, simply to relocate the cars. There are, on occasion, abandoned cars. It does constitute a problem for us in that way. We have to relocate abandoned cars, and it certainly is troublesome. The third area, though, is in Sanitation, and we've talked about the clean-out. Sanitation becomes involved with abandoned vehicles when we're requested to clean them prior to towing. This request usually comes from either the police or elected officials. 103 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 And just as some kind of a scale here, during the period from October the 12th, 1999 to December the 2nd, 1999, the Sanitation Division cleaned 164 abandoned autos, and 128 of them were within the Operation Sunrise area. So only 36 -- the balance of the 36 was done within the rest of the City. So Councilman Rizzo's talked about the way we go at it, and we try to do just in time cleaning with the limited resources that we have. I would agree that if we go with this proposal that Commissioner Applebaum talked about, we'd be, you know, happy to talk about a policy of whether or not the Streets Department should continue this or whether, in fact, a salver should be addressing it. I agree that someone should be addressing it, though.
But if you address it, you would need more money, more personnel. COMMISSIONER MOY: That's the question, and I think that would be -- I think there's a series of issues that have raised today that need to be addressed by the new administration about broadening -- 104 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
But in order to help the new administration, and I know that we have very short time, because today is, what, the 3rd or the 2nd. Can you give this committee, in a very short form, what type of needs -- what the needs would be of the Sanitation Department to do something, as Councilman Clarke and I have and Councilman Rizzo have stated, so that these abandoned cars do not become garbage dumps, so that the Sanitation Department also takes into consideration, as they're going around cleaning and picking up garbage that they would have to clean these cars and so on. What would it take, what would be the necessary personnel or monies and so on that would be needed in order to implement a project such as this? COMMISSIONER MOY: We would probably have to do some kind of an analysis. But based upon some of those numbers that you can see in the small pocket of Sunrise there, we could do some gross estimates.
Could you 105 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 extrapolate from that? COMMISSIONER MOY: We would have to do some analyzing; we couldn't do it here today.
Not to do it today, but could you -- because we're trying to see how we set a framework for functioning in the next administration so that we can -- so that, you know, we're not sitting here four years from now, talking about this. COMMISSIONER MOY: Right.
And we want to be able to end the abandoned-car problem right now. We want to at least set the framework for that, if possible. COMMISSIONER MOY: Well, we will get you an analysis as soon as we can here and back to you.
Commissioner Moy and Commissioner Applebaum, we described the worse-case scenario, but just the day-to-day operation of removing abandoned vehicles, a vehicle is parked for two months, debris is under the vehicle, parts of the vehicle is there as the 106 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 salver tows it away. I have watched salvers work, and what they leave behind is whatever is under the car. They leave behind whatever parts fall from that car in the process of loading it on. And I know that I've called the Commissioner's office a dozen times just to send a crew out to clean an area where a car was removed from. So, again, in this contract or this formalization, that possibly that salver should have to sweep up behind them and not leave a -- they don't take tires, which is a perfect example. If there's a tire laying underneath that vehicle or in proximity of the vehicle, when they tow that car away, that trash pile s left there until eventually, the Streets Department cleans that block. And so, again, some real, real thought has to go into this thing to leave the community and neighborhood in a clean condition after that vehicle is removed. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Well, I would recommend that the specifications of this document include that type of information. And it is not difficult for a salver to do that 'cause when they 107 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 go to an accident scene and they're picking up a car to take it to a auto body shop for body repairs, they sure sit there with their brooms and whatever and they clean the streets up real good. So they would, sure, have the same responsibility to pick up an abandoned car, to leave the street in the same condition that they leave it when they pick up cars for accidents.
Well, they certainly don't do it now. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: That's for sure, but if it's a requirement and if they want to be a part of that contract, they'll have to do it.
That's great. I'm glad we'll dial in on this to make the system work as well as possible. Thank you. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Absolutely.
Thank you all. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Thank you very much.
And we can depend on those things, right? Yes. Thank you. Next is the delegation from EPOP. 108 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 (EPOP witnesses come forward.)
Thank you for your patience. Well, we've been dealing with this now for quite a long time. We've had hearings before, this is another hearing on it. Hopefully, this will bring us to a solution, as we've been saying. Because today is not to talk about the problem, but to talk about the solutions. And I like what you have proposed and sort of read it and the steps that are needed, and a lot of the suggestions and questions that I have been putting forward have come from the hearings that we had before and from the materials that EPOP has given my office and myself. As you have seen the trend that we have asked the Commissioner and the City departments, you can see where Councilman Clarke is going, or I'm going, with this, and the concerns of Councilman, Kenney and DiCicco and myself, we want this committee to really put forward a set of recommendations to the next mayor that will be implemented and funded, 'cause we need the funding, and funded. So could you identify yourself for the 109 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 record. Father, are you going to begin?
My name is Father John Halloran (ph.). I'm the Pastor of Incarnation Church, in Olney.
My name is Janet Torres, and I come from Christ of St. Andrews Church, and I'm a member from EPOP.
My name is Carmen Maria Lebron, and I am a member of Incarnation of (unintelligible) and EPOP.
Good morning. My name is Helen Brown. I'm the community organizer for Project H.O.M.E.
Good morning. Vicki Thompson, and I'm the assistant to the community director.
Who's going to begin? And are you all going to testify? Okay. Go ahead. Father?
As I said, Incarnation is my parish. It's in the Olney section of Philadelphia, and Incarnation is one of the member institutions of EPOP, which, I'm sure, you all know of by now, the Eastern Philadelphia 110 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Organizing Project. We are organizations, 20 4 institutions of churches, schools, community 5 organizations. And basically what we do is, we 6 work together, A, to develop leadership within our 7 own institutions; and, B, in order to use that 8 leadership to effect changes in our neighborhood. 9 And among all of us, we probably represent upwards 10 of 20,000 families, from Kensington, Port 11 Richmond, Hunting Park, and the Olney area of the 12 City. 13 The reason we are here is that one of 14 the things that we do as we organize ourselves is, 15 we conduct what we call "listening campaigns." 16 And in our listening campaigns, all of the people 17 in our organizations and in our institutions get 18 to voice their hopes and their frustrations, their 19 anger and their relief about whatever happens to 20 be going on in their area. And after we heard so many voices in these listening campaigns, we decided that there were certain issues that repeated themselves over and over again. And based on those issues, we came up with a Neighborhoods First platform, which 111 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 we wanted to use to influence the mayoral election. And so what we did was, in March, we called the six candidates together who were running for mayor, and we all met together at the Franklin Plaza, and we presented them with our platform and asked them if they would or would not support our agenda for the neighborhoods. And then after that, when the field narrowed down to Mr. Street and Mr. Katz, both of them came back to us, and at Incarnation Church, they both listened to our concerns again, and we again tried to influence the next mayor's agenda for what's going to happen in our neighborhoods. We think that this issue of abandoned cars is an ideal issue that fits into one of our concerns in our platform, and that concern is coordinated City services. We've all heard testimony about how frustrating it is to get different City departments to cooperate. For example, Mr. Rizzo just mentioned the frustration about whether it's a Sanitation issue or if it's a Streets issue or if it's a Licenses and Inspections issue. So many of our frustrations 112 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 come from the fact that they don't cooperate with each other or communicate or even agree with each other. In order to effect the wider city in terms of this issue, abandoned vehicles, we think, is the issue in order to work on that part of our platform. And it all depends on who will hold our city officials accountable, who will hold what department accountable. And we do think, we at EPOP believe that this is a decision point, where if we can effect this issue, we really can move forward on improving City services, not just around abandoned cars, but if we do this one right, we believe that City services can be improved for our people in a lot of different areas.
Father, the job of holding City agencies accountable, and this issue would fall on the City Council, and specifically on this committee. So they have to do their job and we have to do our job of being able to monitor.
We will lend our voices to your job to make sure that it's done 113 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 well.
Right. And that's why we began hearings on abandoned cars a year ago, so that we could begin. Because we've had hearings on abandoned cars, let me tell you, over the years many times. And the frustration has been that ability to coordinate and hold the administration and the departments accountable. And the inability, really, the inability of the Police Department from doing -- because I don't believe that they are structured and organized, and they should not be asked to do this job personally, that's my personal belief. The Police Department should fight crime; some other agency should remove vehicles.
Okay. Good morning. Again, I introduce myself. My name is Carmen Maria Lebron, and I am a member of the Incarnation of our Lord Parish since 1969, and I'm presently a part of the Eastern Philadelphia Organizing Project. I am from the Olney section of Philadelphia and I have worked in the North Philadelphia area for over 20 years, 25th District. 114 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 Throughout the last years, I've seen my neighborhood and other neighborhoods around me deteriorating, with the experiences of personally witnessing the abandoned homes and the vehicles. I've experienced up to abandoned vehicles in a 7 2-block stretch on Tabor Road, a victim of a chop 8 shop that was closing down, and the cars were 9 moving out into the streets. 10 I begin to wonder, when we host the 11 Republican convention here in Philadelphia next summer, do we want the Republicans to come in -- we're looking forward to receiving over 10,000 people -- (Brief interruption.) (Power outage.) (Proceedings resume.)
Okay, I want to go back to the fact that I've experienced up to 11 abandoned vehicles in a 2-block stretch onto Tabor Road. I feel this to be a disgrace. And I was mentioning the fact that when the Republican Convention comes to Philadelphia, do we want them to see the 115 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 conditions of our streets? Through my involvement with the EPOP, I have been a part of a research team looking at the abandoned-car issues. We represent the hundreds of community residents, as Father mentioned, community organizations, abandoned vehicle officers from a variety of various police districts, police captains, City officials, including the Police Commissioner, and Mr. Dwight Evans. We have also looked at how other cities have identified and have resolved the issue. In our research, we have learned that there is a different way to approach the abandoned-vehicle problem, and I want to share this with you. We feel that the City of Philadelphia needs to create an office for abandoned vehicles, with the sole responsibility of getting these cars off the streets, whether or not the City department does it or if the Police Department does it, but we need someone who works exclusively just with the issue of abandoned auto vehicles. We think that there's a need to have a hotline established so that people can report 116 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 abandoned cars. Having a hotline will enable the officer or the person on the other end to track cars and for the permanent removal from the streets. We've noted in our particular district that we're removing cars that have been reported on paper, not on computer, not networking, but from other districts, and they're dropped into our district. We feel that the City needs to make a commitment to remove the hazardous vehicles immediately -- and that has been discussed repeatedly here if the City has to use its own tow trucks. We support Councilman Clarke's proposal to have salvers apply to work in specific districts or divisions. Salvers need to be responsible for the removal of all -- and I reiterate -- all vehicles, not just those that they choose to remove, but all vehicles in that particular district. We think that police officers should be responsible for reporting the abandoned vehicles on their beat, and to investigate whether these vehicles are either stolen or have been involved 117 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 in crimes. To summarize, the State changes are good, but not good enough to resolve the problem. The City needs to change how it is presently dealing with the abandoned vehicles. And if I may ask a question. I get up in the morning and I'm walking a block and I see that there's a burnt-out vehicle in front of my home or in the block itself. Why can't I pick up a phone, make a call to anyone, and state the condition of the vehicle, and have that vehicle removed, either within the hours or the 48 14 hours? 15 If other large cities can accomplish 16 this, why can't we, working together and 17 coordinating our services, figure out a way. This 18 is an issue that has been presented for a great 19 length of time before City Council, before 20 community, before other organizations, the State, 21 and it's still not being addressed. Why? 22
Well, you've heard. 23 And one of the commitments that we got today from 24 the City Solicitor is that they're going to move immediately to federal court to have the consent 118 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 decree vacated. And that will take -- that will begin the process. The other aspects are the reasons that you have heard here from City administrators, from the Police Commissioner, from the Procurement, from the Sanitation, and down the line. We need to streamline the process. We need to be able to put a department, we need to be able to assign. The Police Commissioner has said it: they cannot do this job, they cannot. They don't have the resources to be able to do it, and we need to believe, together with the State, to put the resources together. I think the aspect of getting $72 per car is a big step forward. But we need to be able to establish an agency within this City that directly deals with the abandoned-car issue.
And to give the resources to that agency to be able to do that.
Can we commit to a timeframe? Because it seems like ten years ago, we were discussing something and now --
Like we said, I 119 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 don't want to be here discussing this over and over. We go through the same frustration. Remember, we live in the same neighborhoods.
Okay? And we have the same problems. I have abandoned cars -- I had a lot down the block, that you take an abandoned car out of there, and two days later, abandoned cars are there again. Okay? And that's my neighborhood. And so we don't want to be here. I said it. I don't want to be here doing these hearings. Councilman Clarke doesn't want to be here doing these hearings. And that's why we emphasize that we need solutions to the City, to the departments. The Police Commissioner's going to be here in January, he's not going to go anywhere. The Mayor-elect understands the problem because he sat here for the last few years dealing with this problem. We need to put forward -- and, you know, we can only, like Dwight Evans said, they can legislate and then we can legislate, but we cannot implement. That will be the job and the role of 120 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 the Mayor-elect and his commissioners. We are trying to find out what are the legal aspects that would prevent us from establishing this department or putting this job onto somewhere else. You heard the questions that I asked of the City Solicitor and that Councilman Clarke asked the City Solicitor. We're trying to see what would be the impediments, what prevents us from establishing what you're talking about.
I also heard you commenting on the fact of the tow trucks, okay? How does a car with no wheels, burnt out, appear in our community in one day?
Well, we would need the equipment, we would need equipment. Do we do it ourselves? Do we have salvers do it? And what are the responsibilities of those salvers and what is the leverage that we're going to have as a city, the departments that are responsible for that, to make those salvers accountable?
Excuse me, Councilman Angel Ortiz. I live in a community that the schools and day care centers, there's 750 kids on the school and it's 80 kids on a the day care 121 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 centers, all right? I collect and I write signatures (sic) of cars that have been abandoned. If I could do it, and I go around and get signatures of abandoned vehicles and I help and I give them to the officers, and I'm one of the community that works in that and I give them to the persons and I write 'em down, and I'm helping the Councilpeople -- I mean, the 25th District, for them to take them cars out -- could I say this in Spanish? Because -- (Ms. Torres and Councilman Ortiz converse in Spanish.)
And I work very hard, very hard, Angel. I work very hard to get my community very clean.
She expressed the frustration of why she is a volunteer, a community resident that does not get a City salary, and she's out there doing the work of City employees.
That she goes out and lists and describes the cars and then reports them to the police precinct, and that these cars are right next to a day care center, right? These 122 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 cars are next to 80 and 200 kids that --
That go into the schools. And why, if she can do that, if she does that, why is it that people who get paid to do that job are not doing the job? And that's why -- that's the questions we've asked, that's the question we asked a year ago from the Commissioner, seven months ago from the Commissioner, and that's the question we asked the Commissioner today. And what we're trying to do is -- (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume conversation in Spanish.)
But, you see, them people that they're not doing their jobs, they should be -- they don't do their work at all. We've been here six months, we came here six ago. They should not get hired then. (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume conversation in Spanish.)
I am very upset, because we came here six months ago and -- (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume 123 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 conversation in Spanish.)
I'm sorry that you guys are not -- but I will translate it at one point. (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume conversation in Spanish.)
We've had police commissioners that have not functioned, that have not put a priority on this. And the point is that this has not been a priority of the Police Department, okay? This has not been a priority of the Police Department. Because the Commissioner said -- (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume conversation in Spanish.)
So the priority is not the cars. (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume conversation in Spanish.)
So what we're doing here, whether you believe it or not, this today is 124 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 progress. Because we are saying and we are committing ourselves, okay? Because what you've got to hear is a commitment. We're not going anywhere. We'll be back here in January, and what we're saying is, we want a set of recommendations, like you're giving us recommendations. Before this Council leaves on the 18th, we will approve a set of recommendations in City Council, the whole Council, that will be -- that will set the direction and the job that we have to do in January with the new mayor and the new administration.
But the responsible person, ain't he supposed to be the Mayor that's supposed to be responsible?
But the Mayor is leaving, remember that. We have a new mayor coming in now.
So we hope that he hears your voice, and we will have our plan that we will present to the Mayor, and we will work with him to be able to implement. And we want to get rid of the abandoned 125 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 car issue, too. I want to be able to begin dealing with building houses and jobs and making kids safe, okay? We want to do that, and we need to be able to -- and we are finding out right now, in these hearings, what is it that we need legally. (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume conversation in Spanish.)
What we need in terms of resources. (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume conversation in Spanish.)
How much is it going to cost? (Councilman Ortiz and Ms. Torres resume conversation in Spanish.)
We asked the City Solicitor what would be the problem with the union with the bargaining contract, the bargaining agreement that we have with the FOP if we decide to go ahead and establish, with the new mayor, a Department of Abandoned Cars.
I figure whatever it takes to get them vehicles out, because I feel that 750 126 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 and 80 kids of the day care center, those are my kids. And I see them kids going up and down the sidewalks every single day because I volunteer in schools, and those are 750 kids that they mines (sic).
Bur right here, you see this? These are thousands of kids across the city.
Take notice where the most condensation is, where the most abandoned vehicles are, that's what we represent. Now, take notice up above the Greater Northeast, west, and all those other areas, they don't have the problems.
You're right. It's not right for you to have to go out and write up vehicles. It's not right for the City and us to ask you to be block captains.
Let me say 127 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 something 'cause I want to talk about a broader issue 'cause it's not just about abandoned vehicles; it's about the responsibility that we continue to lay in the laps of people and communities. 'Cause government, we can't do everything, and we continually ask you to do things in your neighborhood, right, that you don't get paid for.
But we ask you to do that. You know, I got a lady sitting over there, two ladies, they run a drill team, right? But they don't get paid for that, you know what I mean? But we ask them to do that, to take care of our kids. And you are right, it's not right for us to continue you to ask you to do these things in these communities while we in government, who get paid to do this, do not respond properly. And what Councilman Ortiz is saying is that we're going to do something about this. What I ask you to do is, we will be having budget hearings starting next year, and I ask the same people here, if you don't see a response to some degree or some movement towards a 128 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 resolution of this issue, you need to come down here to these budget hearings and hold us responsible again. Now, I can't say every one of the people who spoke for the City individually will be there, but their departments will be there. And you need to keep a score card, a score card, and don't let it be every four years 'cause too often people say, Well, I'm going to get 'em when election time comes. That's too long, don't wait for four years. You need to stay on us. You know, and I'm obviously a new Councilmember by saying this, right? But you need to stay on us on a continuous basis.
You need to come down here for these budget hearings and if these things have not been implemented and you don't see some movement, you need step to us. All right? So that's all I ask you, give us a chance. And I think you're going to see some movement.
Okay? Yes, go ahead. 129 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
Yes. My name is Vicki Thompson, and I am with Project H.O.M.E. The one reason that Councilman Clarke suggested that you keep your score card is because he knows we keep his score card.
Before he became Councilman, we sat down and we talked about these issues. Before he campaigned to become Councilman, we talked about these issues, and I'm glad today to see that he's acting on those issues 'cause he knows we're keeping a score card. I just need about three minutes of your time.
Thank you. I am happy that we have come to the agreement, I believe, that there needs to be a department to handle this problem. I really don't think that it should be totally the Police Department's responsibility for this. However, I do think that they need to have a major part in it. In our particular community, abandoned 130 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 cars -- and I'm sure this is happening all over the City -- abandoned cars are becoming the storage places for drugs, along with the trash and the dead bodies that we talked about. I think salvagers do have a legitimate complaint about not cleaning out a car before they move it. There is just too much along with what's in the car and the germs that it breeds. I think they have a legitimate reason not to want to clean out a car. But we do need the cars removed. And when I say "we," I mean me, myself, and Helen Brown, we work in the community that we live in, and we have done exactly what you have done -- walked the neighborhood and listed every car, written them down, sent them a formal letter, networked with the police captains for the 22nd and 23rd District and expressed all of the abandoned cars and the abandoned houses that are being used for drug havens. And, to our dismay, very few cars get removed until something major happens. And during the time of Operation Sunrise, we seem to have had a major increase in the amount of cars that were brought to our area, 131 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 because, of course, they couldn't get over there to their usual dumping ground. We are not angry about that, that it was switched from one place to another; we're angry that it's happening totally. I think, also, that coordinating services has been a key issue here. If we can do that, we can alleviate a lot of the problems. If we can just get -- like you said, they came out and they cleaned out a car now so that the salvage can move it in a couple of hours, that's fine. But in that process, if something is found in that car, can the Police Department respond in a timely manner too so that the salvager can get that car today, not three days from now. Or is the Police Department going to impound it because of whatever evidence was found in it. And we've come to the agreement that we need equipment. So, again, as expressed about the budget hearings, these things need to be inclusive in that, and we do need to be here to voice that. And like you said, we're asking for the same people here to support us. I don't know if there are salvagers here, but they seem to have taken a big beating. 132 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 I'm not a salvager, but if I was, I wouldn't want to come out and get a car for $15. So I think the $72 incentive is great. I hope the bill passes, but I don't think they need to be the ones responsible for cleaning out a car. (Applause.)
And I don't think they really need to be responsible for cleaning up the major trash that's left behind. Maybe they should be responsible for taking away the tires and scraps of the car.
Let me tell you something. The salvers, they cannot be responsible for cleaning out the cars because, I think, the insurance aspects of it alone would be enormous. I mean, there are many things that are put into those abandoned cars.
Needles that have been used over and over again. And if you are not within the structure the City, just the aspect of insurance would be an enormous, enormous expense for any salver to be able to do. So I don't -- you know, that's why I said it. The City has a 133 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 responsibility here, and we have not -- the Police Department and the structure that we have had in the city has not functioned, has not worked. And that's what ware saying. It needs a new direction. And like you say, very clearly, the roles have to be very clearly defined. If it's going to be Sanitation, if it's going to be the Police Department, but the salvers have a role to play, and their role has to be defined. But the final responsibility lies with the City of Philadelphia. And like Dwight Evans said and Darryl Clarke and I have said, we have the responsibility to our citizens to be able to eliminate this blight and make sure that this dark cloud in Broad and east and west of Broad disappears.
And please come to 134 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 the budget hearings, okay? And any hearing, any meeting that you have, invite us to talk about these issues because we need you to be informed of what we're doing and how we're proceeding, okay? Thank you. Is there anyone else to testify? A salver? Thank you. (Witness comes forward.)
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Council. My name is George Groves. I work with the City salvers.
You know, we moved 1228 cars out of the 25th District, and it doesn't seem like did anything. But I'm sure if we worked together in a combined effort that we've done in the 25th, I'm sure that we'd have no problem cleaning the rest of the City. The problem lies in the fact that Harrisburg has tied us back four months with paperwork. If they don't move the paperwork, then we can't move the cars. That's been the biggest 135 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 problem.
Harrisburg has backlogged us with their paperwork for four months.
When you say they have backlogged you with their paperwork, explain that to me.
In order for us to move a car, we need a control number from Harrisburg, and it has to sit 30 days after it gets a control number.
Exactly. And then we process the paperwork and send it to Harrisburg.
And sometimes it's taking us two to three months to get a control number back from Harrisburg.
No, no. We can remove the 136 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 cars when we get the 952.
But then we have -- each lot only has a certain amount of space.
If we hold 400 cars for 120 days, that's way beyond what we're supposed to be holding when Harrisburg has us backlogged that far. Okay, it's not the City causing the problem here. I love Philadelphia. Actually, I can move but I don't want to. You know, if you want to continue to move cars, then we need the ability to do it. But it's Harrisburg that's putting a stop on everything. It's not Philadelphia, and it's not the salvers. And I think we do get a lot of heat for this.
So we have to be able to communicate with PennDOT and find out why it is taking them so long to process -- 137 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
Mr. Chairman, do you know how many people that have been working up there, salvaging the problem with abandoned cars? Two. Two people. They get burdened from salvers 6 with as many papers as they can feed them. 7
And is that for the 8 whole state or for Philadelphia alone? 9 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: For 10 Philadelphia. 11
What? 12 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: For Philadelphia 13 alone. 14
Yes, sir. Actually, no, that's for the entire state. That's for the state, not for Philadelphia. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It's for the whole state.
Two people for the entire state? 138 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
I would have loved to have had that knowledge with Dwight here.
I also understand that Senator Fumo has also offered to help them with staffing.
Have you developed a position paper or some -- again, this is great today, but do you see a way of streamlining the process -- does Harrisburg need to be as involved as they are in the process? I mean, do you have some recommendations on how to make this run better?
Councilman (sic.) Evans has the right idea -- by not being able to reject any of the paperwork, and for the hulks to be 139 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 destroyed within ten days and get a salvager certificate. That's the way it needs to be done. The City of Philadelphia right now is in a state of emergency with abandoned cars, if I'm not mistaken, correct?
A state of emergency? Well, we haven't declared it, but we do have it.
Mr. Chairman, you said you wanted to take the police away and put it in another person's hands. The way we were able to move 1228 cars was by having police officers with us, okay? There's a House Bill, it's called House Bill 433. Any car that has stickers on the windshield that are 90 days or older is declared an imminent danger and could be removed too, no 22 matter what the status of the car is like.
So are you telling me that if the system that we have right now worked the way it should work, we wouldn't be 140 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 where we are?
So we're not in as not a bad shape with the laws that govern your job; we're just not doing it to the best of our ability?
Well, if we could set up a system that processed, instead of having you send the paperwork to Harrisburg --
A centralizing office in Philadelphia. Then we would be able to remove move that paperwork through Harrisburg very quickly, you know, with --
I think the only thing we wouldn't have -- we wait for control letters from Harrisburg for them to notify the owner. We could do that in Philadelphia. I think the only thing we couldn't do is get a salvager certificate out of Philadelphia 'cause that would directly have to come from Harrisburg.
Well, we need 141 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 legislation, we need some tools to be able to do that. What I'm trying to see is, how do we cut out that process that we are able to process, and then, you know, maybe write a report to the state of Pennsylvania and PennDOT and say that these things have been done, these cars have been removed, these cars -- I'm just trying to see how it is that we are able to cut some of the some of the bureaucracy out of this process. And it's going to take work between this committee, Darryl, myself and our staffs, and see how we can research it and do this. Okay?
Ruth Birchett and Mary Gibson. (Ms. Birchett and Ms. Dirkson come forward.)
I know you from somewhere. 142 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615
I know you from somewhere too. My name is Ruth Birchett. I am president and founder of Heritage Community Economic Development Corporation in Philadelphia. I'm also a community person in the 32nd Ward. My comments are in reference to the abandoned-car problem that we have, and I'm not sure if you've heard the angle that I'm interested in sharing with you. Our neighborhood, as many statistics, the census statistics or whatever would prove out, is a neighborhood where unemployment is and poverty is prevalent. And because of that, having a vehicle, if you happen to own a vehicle, that's a promise of opportunity and being able to access employment. Everyone knows that there is much more employment available outside of the -- immediately outside of the City area, in places such as King of Prussia and other places such as that, or even at the airport, than there are here in the limits of the City. And so residents of our community have been affected by the economics as much as people in other areas. 143 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 The difference is that if you live in a part of the City where you happen to have a garage and you've been laid off and you have a vehicle, your vehicle is protected, and you don't have to worry about in 30 days, you will also -- or perhaps in 90 days, you're also going to lose that vehicle, which might be a potential way for you to get to your next hopeful place of employment. And so we're in a real Catch-22 here. When you put a little sticker waiting for tags on your car and you're hoping and praying that because none of the neighbors have complained about it whatsoever, that you're able to try and acquire that employment and are still be able to utilize that car to get there, you know, in the meantime. But, unfortunately, it happens too often that the clock runs out, and the car gets towed, and then you're in a worse situation than you were. I would advocate for, in areas where there is no neighborhood complaints about it, about a vehicle, that the owner of the vehicle is responsible enough to make sure that trash isn't accumulating around it, will attempt to keep the 144 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 tires inflated and things of that sort, that the owner has exercised some level of responsibility in making sure that that vehicle is not a public nuisance, that it shouldn't be tampered with. It shouldn't be tampered with unless there is cause. I think another angle with regard to this situation -- and actually before I go there, let me just say, too, there's a situation, for example, where a community-based organization that works on housing, a person working there who doesn't live in the neighborhood, nevertheless, was able to get -- kept talking to me about this abandoned car, that it's been there forever, it's been there forever. Well, it comes to find out that it was a car of an elder. It was a classic '59 automobile, and the owner had nowhere to put it but in front of his door. Because, again, we don't have garages. It was towed, through the efforts of this individual. And it's an example of what outside forces cause to happen when no one whatsoever in the neighborhood had any complaints whatsoever.
But that shouldn't 145 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 happen.
But it did, and it was a vehicle that was -- and people like me. I have the same address and phone number as when I was born. You know, I don't have any other place that I want to put my vehicle in front of. You know,, we've been there 49 years. And if I have a vehicle and if I have something that belongs to me and I want it in front of my house, then I should be able to do that -- as long as it's not interfering with anyone else and is not creating any type of a nuisance.
I don't disagree. And I hope that -- and in fact, the reason why we have the consent decree that we have is because in the '70s and through that, that was happening very, very commonly in many areas across north- central and in poor neighborhoods by the Police Department. They were towing cars just that were sitting in front and were not abandoned, were being taken care of. And that's why we have that consent decree. I don't think we have a police department right now that does that. I don't 146 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 think we have an administration incoming or outgoing that would tolerate a police department doing that. But, you know, we have to be able to watch and for the due process rights of citizens poor, rich, or whatever. But we have to make sure that that does not happen.
Well, I'll tell you another situation that's happened. My organization is an emergency food cover site, and we distribute food to the elderly. And we have to go to the Share Program to pick up food, and we have to go to the food bank to pick up food. Well, the food bank had a old 1979 Chevrolet van donated for a raffle out to another organization. Basically another program got a new van. We won the drawing for this clunker. Nevertheless, it worked, but we're an organization that doesn't have a budget to immediately run out and get the tags transferred and get the insurance and things of that sort. So it stayed parked across the street from my house while we attempted to try to get the funds. We used a bicycle pump to keep the tires inflated and, you know, kept going out there and sweeping underneath of it. 147 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 But we got an alarming call at our community center from a neighbor saying, There's a policeman in your van, he's in the van, he's looking all around. I think they're going to tow it. And so, you know, we had to get another organization come and help us take the van, you know, move it around the corner so that it's not at risk of being towed while we try and scramble around, just like the individual homeowner or individual citizen would do to try to protect this so that we can continue providing a totally volunteer service to over 100 elders in every single month.
And in anything we come up with, we've got to make sure that that does not happen.
Yeah. Well, I don't know who it was crawling around the van. The other issue is, there is a garage, for example, at 19th and Norris Street, right on the corner. And everybody knows that they have car auctions and things of this sort. And I've talk with the environmental officer as well as the abandoned-car officer at the 22nd District in 148 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 relation to this problem. But it seems that this particular person will go and purchase vehicles from the auction, come and find out whether they are able to be repairable or not, and trying to sell them. And it's discovering that some of them, it seems at least, that some of them are not repairable, and they end up on the street. This guy is saying that the City trucks just dump them there. And I think that he has this little thing going where the abandoned cars in the 2000 block of Norris Street are from this particular business. And it makes it appear as if individual citizens has them there. So that's one thing I want the Council to be aware of, that there may be some businesses that are in auto repair or whatever that might be also dumping some of these cars onto our City streets. And that's the end of my comments.
And thank you, Councilman Clarke, for your sponsorship on this 149 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 issue. It is very much an issue for our community. And we appreciate your diligence.
You're welcome. And as your Councilperson and also as your ward leader and as your neighbor, I think that the emphasis on what we're trying to do today will deal more with the burned-out junkers, the abandoned vehicles that are designated as nuisances. My understanding in talking to the Police Department is that there is a certain status that's given to each individual vehicle that's written up. Based on that status, there's a required time that notification is given to that particular owner. And my understanding is if the vehicle has no tires, no windows, no tag, no VIN number, then it's designated as an emergency, and there's a short timeframe. And my understanding is that what State Representative Evans is working on, and I know what we're talking about here in this committee and this Council, will be targeted more towards these vehicles. When the City Solicitor was here 150 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 earlier and she was talking about the consent decree, I think she mentioned the fact that it would either be vacated or modified. So if, in fact, there was some instances like you brought up and we find that to be an issue, there may be modifications made to address those vehicles that are designated as an emergency or an extreme nuisance to a community.
Living in your community, I happen to get a lot of complaints about the vehicles every time I go in my house. So there is a lot of human cry about the conditions in our community, not just about the abandoned vehicles, but about other things. And frankly speaking, as I've indicated to you as a person that worked with me during the course of the campaign, I think that we need to take it to another level as it relates to cleaning up some of these nuisance activities in our communities. There will probably be an instance where we will make a mistake when we're talking about something of this magnitude 'cause this will 151 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 be a citywide policy. There's no way in the world that we won't probably take somebody's vehicle that falls within the category that you spoke of today. That is unfortunate, but that is what happens in cities of this size. But our attempts will be to minimize the possibility of that happening. And we're very happy to hear that testimony.
Sure. I'm happy to hear that because there are many issues that neighborhood people, who are very active in the community and are often sought after for problems that citizens have, we often are blind-sided by things that happen that we could have helped out with if we had only had the chance to have input, and you've provided this opportunity. I would not have known about this hearing if I had not gotten a letter from you, and I want to thank you for that.
Honestly, as a block captain, too, you know, just -- there's a mechanism for putting out information to people as well. And there are like over 6,000 block 152 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 captains in the city, and that might be, you know, a good vehicle to put out information to us as well. So thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Maria Dirkson. I'm a committee person and also in charge of concerned organized blocks in my area in North Philadelphia. I've been here, I've had a very educated morning and afternoon, providing about abandoned cars. Every day, by me being a leader, somebody calls my house and says, I want the abandoned car moved. And so I get tired, and I say, Call Darryl Clarke's office. And I know your office is being ringing off the hook. But I have abandoned cars in the 2600 block of North 17th Street, which I've been calling for nine months. We've got about five of them, and they've been setting and setting. And, I mean, some of them has been fire, broken into 'em, and the kids play and fall over everything. But I know it takes time here today, 153 12/3/99 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 990615 listening to how long you have to go through and the procedures which you have to do while they're not moved. But I look forward to in the future, maybe in January, that they will be moved. So I thank God I'm here today and that you all are doing a wonderful job. And you will be able to help me in January so my neighbors and friend that call me 'cause I'm a leader, won't call me and say, Move the abandoned car.
This hearing of the Public Safety Committee on Resolution 990615 is recessed until December 13, at 10 a.m. (Adjourned at 2:30 p.m.) - - - 154 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Friday, December 3 1999, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY RESOLUTION NO. 990615 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter