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PEP April 2014
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Public Employee Press

Local 983 says towing FBI wastes time

FBI agents arrest a man in a Chelsea apartment building, but when they return to the street, their official government car is gone - towed away by the New York Police Dept.

"This is not a movie scene," said Local 983 President Joe Puleo. While all concerned know the FBI will never have to pay city fines, such tows "have become regular occurrences," he said, since 2008. That's when the Bloomberg administration imposed a rigid "no exceptions" towing policy and strict quotas on the tow-truck drivers, Local 983 members in the Traffic Enforcement Agent 3 title.

Under the Bloomberg policy, Police Dept. tow trucks have swept up hundreds of government vehicles in their dragnet as they indiscriminately tow illegally parked marked and unmarked cars belonging to the feds, the Fire Dept., emergency services - even the NYPD itself - with no exceptions, ever.

The vehicles are issued parking violations and summonses and hauled to NYPD pounds. Retrieving government vehicles from the pound requires getting official letters of release and can take four hours or more, Puleo said.

"This wastes time and money," said Puleo, because the violations and fees are eventually dismissed. "Meanwhile all the agents - FBI, Police and our members - have spent a day navigating the bureaucracy instead of enforcing the law."

Puleo has written Mayor Bill de Blasio, asking him to reconsider some aspects of the draconian tow policy, including the NYPD's heavy-handed 3-to-4-vehicles-a-day tow quota for TEA 3s, which Local 983 has filed a lawsuit against, and discontinue the wasteful towing of FBI and other government vehicles.

 
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