Say
you found a red “warning” notice on the windshield of your car. The notice had
the official Tacoma Police Department logo, and was signed “Tacoma Police
Department, Officer number so and so.”
A
reasonable and prudent citizen could only conclude that the notice had been
issued by the police department. Right? Of course that’s the only logical
conclusion. But not so in Tacoma.
Arriving
home from work one day, I found such a notice tucked under the windshield wiper
of my 1975 GMC Jimmy. There was a stripe of bright orange paint on one of the
tires. On the windshield, the date was scrawled with the same day-glow paint.
I’d seen notices like this on wrecked and junk vehicles before, but my truck,
albeit old and rusty, still runs more or less, and in any event, it was
properly licensed and legally parked. The notice (which had the TPD logo)
stated that if I hadn’t moved the truck within 24 hours, it would be impounded
at my expense.
Not
more than fifty feet from where my truck was parked, there sat a newer Mazda
RX7 – with California plates and tabs that had expired in June, 1997. The Mazda
had major body damage, and was parked less than fifteen feet from the corner,
which is illegal. The Mazda had not been given a warning notice.
Seeing
this, I became pretty annoyed.
Somehow
- perhaps in his haste to ticket my rusty old truck - the officer had
overlooked the illegally parked Mazda with tabs that had expired almost two
years earlier. Seeing this, my only thought was that the fashion police must
have finally arrived, and they had decided my truck was too déclassé
for Tacoma.
I did
some checking. As it turns out, the Tacoma Police Department hasn’t given out
the red warning notices for several years. That task, called the “Abandoned
Auto Program,” had been taken over by the city Public Works department, office
of the Traffic Engineer.
This
puzzled me. The notice clearly indicated it was from the Tacoma Police
Department, but apparently, it was not.
Because
of that, and because I was miffed that the “officer” had ticketed my vehicle
while he had overlooked a newer, illegally parked car with expired tabs, I
wrote a letter of protest to the city.
A
couple weeks passed, then Alan Tebaldi, the city Traffic Engineer, responded.
In that response, Mr. Tebaldi stated that my vehicle had been given the warning
notice because it appeared it had been parked there for an extended period of
time, which is prohibited under municipal code. His said officer was flagged
down by one of my neighbors, who apparently complained about the length of time
that my truck had been parked. In response to my questions concerning the
appearance that the notice was given by the Tacoma Police department, Mr.
Tebaldi offered a couple intra-departmental memos from the TPD, where a Captain
explained that the Abandoned Auto Program would henceforth be transferred to Public
Works. As to the Public Works employees who gave the warning notices - who are
actually called “Road-Use Compliance Officers” - Mr. Tebaldi stated that they
were given “special commissions,” by the TPD. He stated that the special
commissions authorize the officers to enforce the parking codes. By this, Mr.
Tebaldi appeared to imply it was appropriate for the “officers” to pass
themselves off as actual Tacoma Police officers. As to the illegally parked
Mazda, Mr. Tebaldi stated, “[The officer] did not observe any other obviously
abandoned vehicle in the area. Had he observed any, he would have tagged them
consistent with our policy.”
This
troubles me. First, I think it might be wise that Mr. Tebaldi check with the
City Attorney, because it isn’t legal for the police department to simply give
away their duties by intra-departmental memo. They don’t have the authority to
do so. The City Council could easily pass a municipal ordinance that would
effect the transfer, but that’s about the only way it could be done legally.
In
addition, the “Special Police Commissions” ordinance (Chapter 7.10 of the city
municipal code) cited by Mr. Tebaldi clearly does not give them the
ability to enforce city codes. Nor does the chapter in any way associate such
special police officers with the Tacoma Police Department.
On
the contrary, the chapter specifically defines “Special Police Officers” as
“merchant patrolmen and security officers.” Thus, a “Special Police Officer”
working for the city would be a city employee whose duties were similar to a security
officer. Not a police officer, in any way, shape or form.
As
such, I sincerely hope Mr. Tebaldi changes the warning notices to disassociate
his staff from the TPD - before some bright citizen sues his agency for fraud,
or before one of his staff gets arrested for impersonating a cop. And who
knows, maybe eventually the City Council will even make the enforcement legal?
Stay tuned…