The headline in last Tuesday's Springfield Republican caught my eye right away: "Report says towing group in compliance," read the banner over an article by reporter Mike Plaisance.
Just a couple of days earlier I'd filed with my editors at the Advocate an article on the very same company, the Springfield Towing Alliance, which since last spring has held the contract to handle all police-ordered towings in the city. (See "No Business Like Tow Business," July 24, 2008, www.valleyadvocate.com.)
In the article, I'd written about ongoing problems City Hall had documented over a period of many months with the STA, including its repeated failures to make required payments to the city on time; its failure to provide complete paperwork and other documentation, such as criminal checks on its drivers; complaints by police officers of late response times; and the lack of a complete GPS system STA had promised to install when it got the contract. I also wrote about a draft financial audit, released in March by the city auditor and still not finalized, that said STA could owe the city about $80,000, the majority of it unpaid fees STA is required to pay the city for every tow it does.
These were major issues that had remained unresolved despite months of escalating pressure from City Hall (pressure that seemed to ease after Domenic Sarno took over the mayor's office from Charlie Ryan in January).
Could things have improved so dramatically, so quickly, as the headline of the Republican article suggested?
Apparently not.
The report, dated July 16, was based on a May 28 inspection conducted at STA's Chandler Street headquarters, a city-owned property leased by the company. The inspection was conducted by Sgt. Donald Sicard, the Springfield Police Department's contract compliance officer; Eddie Corbin, the city's chief procurement officer; and Jimmy McVey, an investigator for the Law Department.
The report was, overall, a mixed bag. Sicard, who wrote the report, noted that STA "appears" in compliance on numerous issues, from employee conduct to providing the SPD access to towed vehicles to its cleaning up of tow sites. The report also stated STA had improved its response time to calls from officers. In addition, safety inspections of STA's tow trucks yielded results from "very good" to "fair."
But the review also showed that in multiple other matters STA was found not in compliance—in some cases, matters that were brought to the company's attention months ago. For instance, according to the report, STA has yet to submit required background checks on its drivers—a failure that city attorney Alesia Days was pressing STA to resolve as long ago as July of 2007, a city Law Department memo shows.
In addition, the report found that the GPS system was still not complete. (Last summer, according to a Law Department memo, Jones' attorney told a city solicitor that "the GPS systems have been ordered and [STA is] awaiting delivery.") STA also was found not in compliance with a requirement that it respond to city complaints by the next day, and its waiting room did not have towing and storage rates posted, as required under the contract.
STA also still did not have "overflow" vehicle storage space available, another contract requirement. According to the report, STA President Bobby Jones and his operations manager, Bob McCollum, told Sicard during the May inspection that that requirement had been waived when the contract was signed. "They were unable to provide documentation of same and we were unaware of any such waiver," Sicard wrote. As of July 16—the date on the report—that matter still had not been addressed, Sicard added.
Finally, the inspection report noted continuing failures by STA to file complete paperwork with the city. Those failures had contributed to the finding in the draft audit that STA appeared to owe the city more than $70,000 in fees. The audit looked at the SPD's records of the number of tows in the city from the time STA took over the contract through December 2007, totaling 4,625; STA, however, had only reported, and paid the city for, 3,196 tows—$71,093 less than the city would be owed according to the SPD records.
The draft audit also found that STA owed $10,285 in utility payments the city had been incorrectly making on the Chandler Street property because STA had failed to transfer the accounts to its name until several months after it moved to the site.
The recently released inspection report does not address these financial issues; as Sicard wrote, such matters are the purview of the auditor's office. Last week, City Auditor Mark Ianello told the Republican the final audit was "several weeks" away from completion.
Neither Jones nor his attorney, Mickey Harris, responded to interview requests from the Advocate.
Even if STA does emerge from the city audit with a clean (or clean enough) bill of health, lots of questions remain. Why has the city been willing to accept for more than a year promises that STA will finally address unresolved issues, like the incomplete GPS system and missing criminal-records checks? Public records show STA has been late multiple times on required monthly payments to the city; why hasn't that non-compliance with the contract prompted City Hall to exercise any of the options legally available, including fining STA or revoking the contract? And given the ongoing problems, including the unresolved questions over whether STA owes the city money, why did the majority of city councilors vote to give STA a special permit for its lot back in April? (Two councilors, Rosemarie Mazza Moriarty and Tim Rooke, had tried to delay the vote until a final audit was available, but they were outvoted by their colleagues.)
The STA, it's worth noting, has plenty of political connections. Jones was a major supporter of former state Rep. Ray Jordan, whose daughter Denise is now Sarno's chief of staff. Jones was also a long-time client of political consultant, former tax collector and admitted tax evader Charlie Kingston, whom Sarno has described as an old family friend and "supporter." (For more details, see "Tangled Web," July 24, 2008.) Sarno did not respond to an interview request from the Advocate.
Rooke, who for months has been raising questions about STA's performance, was not impressed with the inspection report. "It was lackluster at best," said Rooke, adding that he'd hoped the report would contain more details. He was also disappointed to see issues like the GPS system still unresolved after so much time. "These are issues that are being brought to their attention time after time, and it's still not been corrected," he said. "The compliance report indicates they're still out of compliance, and it's 16 months, 17 months into the contract."
Rooke is now awaiting the auditor's report to answer the long-unresolved question of whether STA does, in fact, owe the city money. "If, in fact, they're out of compliance, and if, in fact, it's proven they do owe us money, we have the authority, as the city, to change the contract at any time to our favor," he said. "That's what should be done. If they don't agree to our language, give them the 30-day notice to cancel the contract and see if that changes their minds. If not, then let's put it back out to bid, or go to the number-two bidder."
mturner@valleyadvocate.com
