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Escondido traffic checkpoints take families' cars
And a $180 processing fee that you have to pay the police in order for them to release your vehicle from the tow yard is outrageous! How much work does the Police Explorer really have to do behind the counter to print that piece of paper and release the tow yard hold?? It seems to me that the processing cost is created by the very fee that they claim pays for the processing to release one's vehicle. Remember, this checkpoint is done to curtail driving under the influence. All this chatter about doing what is right and following the letter of the law is fabulous, except that the police don't follow the law themselves when they take the vehicle (as explained above by an in-the-know poster). Sure, you absolutely should be driving with insurance and registration. But if you aren't truly able to afford that, does creating more of a debt help solve the situation? Maybe there is a hardship that prevented the payment or maybe there just wasn't enough money to go around this month and the insurance lapsed. I'm not saying that is acceptable behavior. What I am saying is that the police's behavior is UNACCEPTABLE. If you can't afford to carry insurance, you're taking a risk. Never you mind how you're financially penalized by the insurance companies for trying to get insurance after a lapse, as they oftentimes charge exorbitant rates to reconnect you to the land of the legal driver. Let's just say, it doesn't pay to be poor. Especially in San Diego County.— August 5, 2010 10:25 a.m.
Escondido traffic checkpoints take families' cars
What the author inadvertently failed to mention is that the tow yard does not have to auction off your vehicle within that 15 days that you have to act on it after the 30-day hold. They can wait another 30, 60 or 90 days (depending on jurisdiction)! So if someone just lost their $1500 vehicle the tow yard would probably rush to auction it off because there is no money in it for them. However, if your vehicle is a $10,000 or higher vehicle that you can't afford to retrieve out of hock -- the tow yard will likely wait longer so that the tow yard fees increase so that the tow company can take more money from the sale of your vehicle. And the best part is that if your vehicle is auctioned off and it does not sell for what is "owed" then your license is held up at DMV until you pay the rest of the money "owed" -- but if your vehicle goes for more than what is "owed" that excess is folded back into the city's general fund. Those who claim that people not driving with legal paperwork is reason enough to swipe that person's car is excellent obedience to a flawed system. I commend those who blindly go along. Unfortunately, in dealing with lower income families, all too often we see them struggling to make ends meet. Instead of a system that helps, we have a system that punishes. Those with enough disposable income are not bothered with the inconvenience whilst those without any disposable income are ruined. To say yeah ruin the poor is sick. And it only puts the burden on society to pay the expense.— August 5, 2010 10:17 a.m.
Castaneda Clean
Cheryl Cox is using her bully pulpit to eliminate competition. It's the way those guys do what they do. Her last election, she accused everyone in the city of wrong-doing, perceived or real, including Councilman Castaneda (remember she wanted her buddy elected). Yet Cox has been in office now for nearly four years and she hasn't done anything but isolate herself from the rest of the council. Cox cannot garner a consensus, she argues and belittles with constituents who appear before the council, and she's botched handling the city's finances worse than any previous mayor. Yet, Cox still continues to blame past administrations for the ills of the city. Never you mind she has tried to raise taxes upwards of four times (what a great Republican!), she has paid consultants tens of thousands of dollars to do studies in order to help her buddies defeat her enemies bond measure (this was the same year we could not afford a Fourth of July, and don't even get started on reduced library hours), Cox hired a known sexual harasser in former City Manager David Garcia and then basically condoned his porn surfing behavior by merely sending him a mayor letter of admonishment asking him not to do that and Cox even had a chief of staff who she let get paid by another entity to do that entity's job on Chula Vista taxpayer's dime. Yeah, you're right ............ Steve Castaneda is a crook.— May 27, 2010 8:57 a.m.