Sunday, February 18, 2007

Portland Towing Horror Show Hotspot Alert #1

Park in certain areas in NE Portland and you are virtually certain to be towed.

Park just across the street and your vehicle becomes invisible to tow truck drivers--there is no other explanation.

Here are the properties in the NE Cully/Killingsworth area to beware of:

Villa de Clara Vista Apartments (including weekend mercado events)
Clara Vista Town Homes
Villa de Suenos Apartments
Jardines de la Paz Apartments
Clinica de Buena Salud (including mobile clinics)
Point West Credit Union
Villa de Mariposas (north)
Villa de Mariposas (south)

These properties are all owned by Hacienda Community Development Corporation (CDC), the largest apartment owner in the NE Cully Neighborhood, and the Heavyweight Champ of Towing.

Hacienda CDC authorized 155 tows in 2006 alone.

They are in a class all by themselves.

Here is where it appears to be safe to park in the vicinity of Hacienda’s properties:

Aero Manor Apartments (Handy Andy’s Towing)
The Town Plaza complex of strip clubs, including:
The Sugar Shack strip club (juice bar and dancers) (minors now welcome)
The Pink Marlin (strip bar and restaurant)
Video Visions (toys—movies—models—chantilly lace—peekaboo)
The Viewpoint strip club
These businesses and the Aero Manor all together accounted for just 6 tows in all of 2006.

It is a wonderment.

Retriever Towing patrols the Town Plaza parking area and shares the Hacienda CDC properties with Sergeants. Sergeants also patrols The Viewpoint, another low-down strip club a few blocks to the East on Killingsworth.

Now that you are acquainted with all of the players, here are the 2006 numbers:

Hacienda CDC Tows (Retriever and Sergeants): 155 vehicles towed
Aero Manor Apartments (Handy Andy’s): 1
Town Plaza assorted strip clubs (Retriever): 0
Video Vision adult shop (Retriever): 3
Viewpoint strip club (Retriever and Sergeants): 2

Here’s the secret: The safest place to park in the Cully neighborhood is at the strip clubs—and you don’t need no stinking parking passes!

Hacienda contracts with Retriever and Sergeants to patrol-tow its residential properties, but has a very different arrangement for its own staff and board of directors’ parking needs—no patrol towing there at all on 42nd Avenue.

Embedded among the Hacienda CDC properties, adjacent to the Villa de Clara Vista are the Aero Manor apartments, one of the ugliest places to live in America, also patrol-towed. The towing service provider here is Handy Andy’s Towing.

Here's what got me interested into looking deeper into the Cully Towing Horror Show, a flyer circulating in cyberspace:

(the flyer formatting went away)



Towed Vehicles

These vehicles were owned or operated by Multnomah County employees, Portland Police, Clinica de Buena Salud employees, School representatives and other providers, and were towed from the Villa de Clara Vista back parking lot by Retriever Towing Company, under contract to Hacienda Community Development Corporation:

Carla Radcliffe, M.D. Medical Doctor at La Clinica de Buena Salud towed on 4-27-01

10-2004 Mary Lou Kerns, Senior OA at La Clinica de Buena Salud towed in October of 2004
Parked in the Management Parking Lot with a Parking Permit attached to the dash board

7-05 Ruben Martinez almost had his vehicle towed in the month of July 2005 in the back parking lot. He was parked in the lot facing North of Villa de Suenas. The Tow truck was hooking it up to Ruben's car ready to tow but Ruben walked out in time.

2003 Raquel Aguillon, County employee, whose office is in the Ortiz center, car was towed.

6-14-05 Francisco Sanchez of NW Family Works, one of La Clinica de Buena Salud providers. He was providing services to youth kids as his vehicle was towed at Mariposas.

8-5-05 Christine Taylor with the Juntos program had her car towed during the Mercado. She was here to provide outreach to residents.

8-5-05 Ricardo Acuna's vehicle also towed during Mercado. Here to provide outreach to residents.

8-5-05 Jill Keeney an advocate for a blind man was here to get food from Mercado and her vehicle was towed. She was crying badly as she had no money in which to get her vehicle.

8-15-06 Joanne Buck, Community Health Nurse with Multnomah County, came unannounced to
visit a Somali family as she provides many periodic home visits and her vehicle was towed from the back parking lot of the Ortiz Center.

06 Portland Police Officer Jose Gonzalez had his personal vehicle towed from the back lot as he came to the Ortiz Center on police business.

8-8-06 John Li, an MPH Intern for the State of Oregon with acute and Communicable Disease Program Public Health Prevention was here to provide a presentation at one of the women’s groups. He saw his vehicle being towed from the window and made a mad dash out the door. His colleague Teresa Rios with the Health Department invited him to come speak to this group and she felt helpless as she had invited him to park here.

2-2-07 A new volunteer dentist with Northwest Medical Teams vehicle was towed from the back parking lot. She comes to volunteer a service to low income families who are in great need of dental work. She had her purse and coat in the vehicle when it was towed.

=====================

That's the end of the flyer. I don't know how long its been going around, but there it is. In Part 2, I'll publish the entire list of tows, so you can see for yourself.

What is it that makes people parking-stupid when they drive onto Hacienda properties, but makes their vehicles invisible when they park at the strip clubs across the street?

It looks like Retreiver and Sargeants towed everybody's cars except Hacienda's staff and board of directors' cars.

I'm starting to feel a little better about things now. Over the past two years since Hacienda's tow company trespassed on my property, stole my van and broke the transmission, since Hacienda's Board Chair Bertha Ferran and her sidekick Tonya Wolfersperger stonewalled me over the damage, I thought it was personal.

But now I see that these two treat everybody that way, too.

Did I mention how Bertha Ferran told me to either call the police or wait until two days until Monday regarding Retriever's theft of my vehicle, and that about three hours of that officer's time was paid for by your tax money?

End of Part 1

Part 2 Coming Soon

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let me give you a couple more things to think about.

These are all the companies owned by a Mr. Gary Coe.

(1)Private Parking Auditors: Patrols parking lots and writes tickets, calls for Retriever for the tows.
(2)Retriever Towing:tows cars for parking infractions, patrols parking lots and handles district 3 police calls.Has two impound lots and shares three of Speeds Supertow's four lots.
(3)Oregon Lien:Puts liens on the impounded cars so that they can be auctioned. They do this for both Speeds and Retriever with in about a week of being impounded.
(4)Speeds Auction Yard:Sells the cars not picked up from auction. For both Speeds and Retriever. They also auction cars for just about every charity you could imagine, not for free though.
(5)Speeds Supertow:Normal Towing. You call they come get you. They also handle police call's for district 5 and 8. They charge more than any other tow in town and they give a 20% discount to dealership's and shop's. The dealership's and shop's in turn charge full price to the cars owner for the tow and make a nice profit for picking speeds.
(6)Fleet Sales West:Custom makes tow trucks and towing equipment. They're the only one in town, so everyone go's to them or has it brought from out of state. They're also called Golden West Towing in California.
(7)Speeds Auto Service:Does all the fleet maitenance for not only the tow trucks but all Gary's other companies and they'll turn a wrench for people off the street. They're also a car dealership for the nicer cars.
(8)Speeds Auto Body:Does all the body work for the fleet of tow trucks and anyone they bump into.
(9)Auto Adventure:Chops cars up for parts and sells those parts nation wide.
(10)Coe Cunsulting:Sell's the secret's to Gary Coe's success in twelve easy step's.
(11)Cascade Coach Town Cars:Drives people around like a taxi but for alot more.
(12)Pacific Executive Service town cars: Also does the expensive taxi service but mostly to the airport.

Gary has the American dream, a monopoly. He has his finger's in three police districts. No other tow company can claim that inside Portland. He has over fifty trucks (all new) and six impound yards totle. Bigger than anyone else in the State of Oregon. Gary controls a lyons share of the contracts with dealerships and shops through 20% disscount/kick backs. Gary also has his own lobbyist in the Oregon Legislator and has been President of several towing organizations.

The Tow Truck Drivers are poor and manipulated. They make commission off the tow. So it's in there best interest to tow alot and bend the rules, speed, cut corner's. They have no Union, no medical benefit's. Most will be hurt several times on the job and will only last a couple of years. None of these drivers have certification or CDL's. There training is in house or if they're lucky a traveling trainer (NATA)will come through town and give them some wall paper. Nobody ever fails those schools and there hosted on company property. All these driver's sign a non-disclosure when hired so they can never speak about the truth. They Drive 12 to 14 hour's a day and have 24 hour on call shifts which mean's there on the road more than a driver with a CDL legaly could be. Big Rig's are only aloud to drive for elevan hours and they have to keep a log. Many of these Tow trucks are as big as a semi truck too. Yes, many of these driver's are rude. But under these conditions who wouldnt be. Everybody hates them including there boss, they get little sleep, sacrifice there families, make $30,000 a year for it and are constantly exposed to stress and confrontations. I hope you'll take all this to heart. I know it might not be printed do to libel concerns, but if you investigate it at all you'll see it's all fact. Thank You.