Many Iowa State students complain about having their cars towed, but few students think about taking the initiative to change the Ames towing policy.

Joset Etzel, senior in forestry, has started a petition to present to the Ames City Council. Her mission is to change the city’s towing policy.

Section 18.19 of the city code allows a private citizen to tow a car from his or her property at any time by calling a towing company directly, Etzel said.

The current towing policy reads, “Under private property rules:

• The owner of the property can have the vehicle ticketed and towed.

• The tow charge is assessed to the owner/operator.”

Etzel started the petition in response to a personal experience. She said on March 9, the day of a blizzard when ISU classes were canceled, her neighbor had her car towed away from the front of her trailer home because he claimed it was in his parking spot.

“When I woke up in the morning, [my car] was gone,” she said. “I thought it was stolen.”

She contacted officials at the police department, who told her to file a stolen vehicle report. She called all the towing companies in Ames and discovered that one of them had her car, she said.

Etzel asked if the company had any proof that the car was in her neighbor’s spot, but company representatives claimed that they had taken the neighbor’s word for it.

“It got me thinking,” Etzel said. “I went and talked to the lawyers in the [Memorial] Union … I found out you can call up a company and tow any car you want.”

Because her neighbor’s actions were legal, Etzel’s lawyer informed her that the only way to acquire a refund for the towing was to take her neighbor to small claims court and prove that the car was parked legally.

“It’s impossible to win,” Etzel said. “By the time you have to prove it, the evidence is gone.”

Etzel sent a letter to the Ames City Council, as well as Ames Mayor Ted Tedesco, requesting a change of the city code, requiring a car to be ticketed by the police or by the Department of Public Safety before it is towed.

Etzel said she secured a copy of the memorandum sent out by Bob Kindred, assistant city manager, regarding her request. It read: “Disadvantages of involving the department in private tows include making the process more time consuming and increasing the city’s liability.”

Etzel also spoke with Police Chief Dennis Ballantine, who said he was not in favor of adopting the ordinance because it would increase police workload and liability.

Despite the ill response from the city, Etzel decided to pursue her request by starting a petition.

“If the police were called in my case, my car would never have been towed,” she said. “I got screwed over, and there was nothing I could do about it.”

She hopes to collect enough signatures to present the petition to the City Council in about a month.

The petition states: “We the undersigned are in favor of changing the current Ames towing ordinance. We want to require that all cars be ticketed for illegal parking by the Ames Police Department or the Department of Public Safety before they are towed for illegal parking.”

“I just hope to get the ordinance changed,” Etzel said.

DPS does not have the same policy as the City of Ames.

“We don’t tow anybody on a private request,” said Doug Houghton, program coordinator at DPS. “If your vehicle got towed [by DPS] it would have been ticketed,” he said.

DPS only tickets on university property, and does not deal with private property owners.

Houghton said DPS tickets a car first and waits four hours before towing the vehicle. If a lot is full and reserved parkers cannot get into a spot, DPS will begin towing sooner, he said.

Etzel’s proposed change to the Ames ordinance is modeled after the policies of other towns, such as Iowa City.

The Iowa City code requires that all cars be ticketed before being towed.

“If you have in excess of $25 of tickets, you will be put on a tow list and towed,” said Sergeant Jim Steffen of the Iowa City Police Department.

He added that a car may be towed at any time if it is causing a hazard.

More information can be found about Etzel’s petition and case on her homepage, www.public.iastate.edu/~jaetzel. Names can also be added to the petition at that Web site.