Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly on Tuesday rejected towing rate increases passed by the City Council last week, issuing his first veto as mayor.
Rates were set to roughly double following the council’s vote affecting services including day and night or weekend towing and vehicle storage. Before last week, towing rates for companies on the city’s call list hadn’t been updated since 2004.
Kelly said in a letter to council members on Tuesday that the increases were “just too high,” even when accounting for inflation over the past 18 years.
Council members voted to raise towing fees from $125 for daytime and $135 for weekend or nighttime tows to $250 and $275, respectively. Storage fees for towed cars were also increased from $15 to $35 per day. Those changes were set to go into effect on Dec. 20, two weeks after the council’s final approval.
(READ MORE: Towing rate increases clear first reading before Chattanooga City Council)
Kelly suggested revised rates of $200 for daytime and $215 for weekend or evening tows, which he said is more in line with the rate of inflation.
“While the $50 difference in my … rate proposal is not dramatically far apart from the council’s proposed ordinance, that difference really matters to working class Chattanoogans struggling with inflation themselves — especially when a towing fee is almost always an unexpected expense,” Kelly wrote.
Finding the right rate means striking a “tough balance” between keeping fees affordable for residents and making sure local towing companies don’t go out of business, said Ellis Smith, Kelly’s director of special projects, by phone on Tuesday.
Smith said the mayor’s office received a lot of negative feedback from the public after news of the rate increases spread.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga wrecker board moves forward with plan to double tow rates)
“It’s unfortunate that the process was not respected in a timely manner, and we were not able to reach a compromise during the process,” council Vice Chairwoman Raquette Dotley said at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Now, the council can try to override Kelly’s veto with a majority vote, reexamine the rates with a new ordinance or drop the issue and revert to the old rates. Dotley asked city attorney Phillip Noblett on Tuesday to draft a resolution “addressing the veto” to be discussed next week.
Kelly’s office advocated for those lower rates to council members ahead of the vote and asked for the decision to be delayed by a week.
Council Vice Chairwoman Raquetta Dotley previously told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that the council’s rates were set after comparing rates charged by other municipalities and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Mark Shackleford, who owns a local towing company, told the council Tuesday that the rates passed last week were decided upon after he and others in the industry worked together to account for costs.
“We’ve put a lot of time into what’s going on here, you guys have all voted unanimously on this already, and I don’t think the mayor’s veto should stand,” Shackleford said.
Contact Ellen Gerst at egerst@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6319. Follow her on Twitter @ellengerst.