city audit<\/a> that found the towing program has a \u201cdisproportionate impact\u201d on low-income people.<\/p>\nAn analysis of fiscal years 2017 through 2022 showed that more than 25,000 vehicles had been towed for registrations expired longer than six months, and that more than 12,000 of those vehicles were sold.<\/p>\n
The next highest category of violation-prompting tows, violations of the 72-hour rule, led to fewer than half that number of tows.<\/p>\n
New data since that audit suggest the trend has continued. The No. 1 towing violation in calendar year 2023 and the first 10 months of 2024 was expired registration, with 6,458 in 2023 and 5,423 from January through mid-October of last year.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s independent budget analyst said the new policy could cost San Diego roughly $1.4 million in lost towing revenue. But the IBA said that number, which is based on the city\u2019s revenue from tows in recent years, could end up being off the mark.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why the fiscal impact is difficult to estimate is that the potential revenue loss could be mitigated if vehicles that otherwise would have been towed for expired registrations over six months are nonetheless towed for an alternative violation,\u201d said the IBA\u2019s Baku Patel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a majority of these vehicles do in fact get towed for other violations, the fiscal impact could be minimal,\u201d Patel said. \u201cConversely, if most of these tows are successfully avoided, the fiscal impact would be more significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patel added that some of the lost revenue could be mitigated by increased citation revenue if people with expired registrations manage to come up with the money to pay their registration and the related city fines.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Marni von Wilpert said the city should come up with a way to help such people by negotiating down the city citations they face or creating payment plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople should be able to get out of a mountain of debt they couldn\u2019t pay anyway,\u201d von Wilpert said.<\/p>\n
But she also stressed that the city can\u2019t just let people stop registering their cars, contending that payment plans would help encourage people to keep their cars registered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have to enforce the rules,\u201d said von Wilpert, noting that registration rules are the primary way the state gets people to have their vehicles smog-checked.<\/p>\n
Whitburn expressed support for the payment plan idea.<\/p>\n
Some local organizations that advocate for low-income residents lobbied for greater concessions, including the city agreeing not to report registration violations to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.<\/p>\n
Chris Kennison, civic engagement organizer for Alliance San Diego, said the city should do everything it can to prevent towing from ruining people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis practice has long disproportionately harmed low-income San Diegans and communities of color,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Whitburn said the policy change on towing was a crucial move for the city and its most vulnerable residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will keep happening to low-income San Diegans unless we do something about it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s up to us to fix this injustice. It is a textbook case of a structural inequity: an institutional practice that perpetuates poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego city leaders want to stop towing vehicles with expired registrations, because having a vehicle taken away…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":375988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,728,8629,50,80,3549,7264,7289,522,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-375987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-local-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-transportation","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115542562176607844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}