Illustration by Tabitha Walters
Alyshia Dyer ran for sheriff promising to reduce racial disparities in arrests and shake up the officeís leadership. In December, she held a Race and Economic Justice Town Hall to invite input for her agenda when she takes over this month.
One thing she shouldn’t have to worry about is towing contracts. Retiring sheriff Jerry Clayton recalls that when he took office sixteen years ago, he discovered the department wasn’t bidding out the contracts that determined who his deputies called when they needed a car towed.
“In that first year I walked into a meeting in the conference room that I didn’t know about,” Clayton says. Looking around, he recognized the owners of several local towing companies. “They had all these maps out and they were carving up the county, deciding who got what territory for the contracts!”
Stunned, he walked out of the meeting, “called over some of my staff, and I said, ‘All right, that’s gonna stop.’
“I went back into the meeting, I said, ‘All right, meeting’s over.’” The owners protested but Clayton bluntly told them, “That’s not how we’re gonna do this.”
Instead, “we put a process in place where they had to bid, meet certain criteria.” If his staff caught a company adding unnecessary charges, or otherwise falling short of expectations, “we suspended their towing service. And we did this a number of times.”
“Law enforcement tows” by the sheriff’s office and AAPD generated $436,500 in fees in 2023, not including extras like storage. “They make so much freaking money off towing,” says Clayton. “And we regulated how much they could charge for this and that. Enough for ’em to make money—they’re all making a ton of money—but they’re not gouging the people” whose cars are towed.
The current towing contracts, with Brewer’s and Sakstrup’s, are up at the end of February, but Dyer won’t face any surprises: she’ll find new contracts ready for her review. “We have people from our team that go out and actually do the inspections at the yards. They attend the auctions,” Clayton says. “Our plan is to leave that complete package, put a bow on it, and leave it on her desk.”
“We don’t get much revenue from it,” Clayton says: about $48,000 in 2023. But “it’s not about whether we’re making money or not,” he says. “It’s about whether people are getting treated right.”
Related: Tow Truck News
