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Extracted from Consolidated Report
This investigation was originally published as part of a larger consolidated report containing multiple investigations. View the consolidated PDF for the complete document.
Los Angeles County Grand Jury
• 2016-2017
Tow Daily Cities Release 1 Day 2 Days 3 Days 7 Days 15 Days 30 Days Fee2 Storage2
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Recommendations 5
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R13Page 249Six of the twelve cities surveyed for this investigation (Baldwin Park, Beverly Hills, Huntington Park, Irwindale, San Fernando and West Covina) indicated that their towing vendors provided in-kind services and gifts outside of their contract requirements. The vendors’ donations and services typically included free meals at public safety checkpoints and community meetings and events, sponsorships for luncheons and athletic events, and supporting community events.
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R14Page 249Of the surveyed cities, only two cities (Glendale and West Covina) maintain policies regulating or prohibiting towing vendors from selling auctioned lien vehicles to city officials or city agencies. Five cities (Baldwin Park, Beverly Hills, Glendale, Glendora and Whittier) maintain policies regulating or prohibiting the city from contracting with vendors that are owned by city employees. One city (Glendora) has a policy regulating or prohibiting the city from contracting with vendors who employ relatives of city officials.
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R15Page 250Police department personnel are heavily involved in the contracting process in nine of the twelve cities. Single departments were found to be solely responsible in a number of key stages in the tow vendor procurement processes in three surveyed cities.
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R16Page 250Individual city employees may have too much involvement in the procurement process and may benefit from gifts and services of interested parties and not be subject to financial disclosure.
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R17Page 250There have been several instances of impropriety involving towing vendors that provided in- kind services and donations to government officials and employees in Los Angeles County in recent years. Cities have an obligation to mitigate fraud and abuse by adopting and enforcing conflict of interest policies, enhancing the competitive bidding process to include more stakeholders documenting proposal evaluations, and increasing reporting requirements for gifts and services provided by towing vendors. 236 2016-2017 LOS ANGELES COUNTY CIVIL GRAND JURY FINAL REPORT V RECOMMENDATIONS