CARLTON FLETCHER: Albany’s new wrecker policy the result of political pandering

You’re my buddy, my pal and my friend.

— Willie Nelson

If you want to look at the city of Albany’s non-preference wrecker towing policy with an open mind, you have to be able to disregard the hard-sell on both sides of the issue and just look at the facts.

Which in this case, it seems, the Albany City Commission was incapable of doing.

Despite a recommendation from Albany Fire Department Chief Ron Rowe, who, as director of the city/county Emergency Management Agency and E-911 center, is charged with dispatching a rotation of non-preference wreckers to accident sites to clear roadways as quickly as possible, the commission voted Tuesday to approve a bastardized “two-tiered” program that will allow less-than-fully equipped wrecker services to remain part of what is a lucrative rotation.

With Ward II Commissioner Bobby Coleman singing the praises of “inclusion,” Ward IV’s Roger Marietta declaring that AFD “didn’t care” whether the commission voted for a “one-tier” or “two-tier” system, and Ward VI’s Tommie Postell deciding that Rowe’s recommendation was a “monopoly just to satisfy the fire department,” the commission voted 5-1-1 for a “two-tier” system of utilizing local wrecker services.

The genesis of the debate over the issue has to do with Rowe and AFD attempting to update a policy that had been in place without change for decades. When they recommended initially that the new policy require all wrecker services in the rotation to own towing equipment that would allow the service to move larger wrecked vehicles (of 16,001 pounds or more), some of the local services already in the rotation went to Coleman and other commissioners claiming they were being unfairly excluded.

So the commission tabled the matter.

When it resurfaced earlier this month during a commission work session and discussion of the matter got testy once again, Marietta asked again to table the issue. City Manager Sharon Subadan pointed out that the issue had already been tabled and that the policymakers in the city (the commission) were the ones who had to make a choice. So the board, in a non-binding vote during the work session, gave preliminary approval to the one-tier policy that Rowe had recommended.

Essentially, the options were for the commission to either require all wrecker services in their rotation to own equipment that would allow them to move larger wrecked vehicles, the so-called one-tier system, or to allow wrecker services to be in the rotation without having the heavier, more expensive equipment.

The “tiers” refer to E-911 personnel determining from accident reports whether heavier equipment is required to move the wreckage. For semis, larger delivery trucks and some other vehicles, the heavier towing truck would be required.

Rowe argued that asking personnel to determine which type of towing equipment would be required without their being at the accident site would cause delays and human-factor errors. And Ward V Commissioner Bob Langstaff wondered during earlier discussion if, with ownership of the heavier towing equipment no longer required, companies that did own such equipment might sell it and force emergency personnel to call Columbus or Tifton or some other community to remove larger wrecked vehicles.

Some have even suggested that such a scenario, in addition to causing long delays in traffic flow, might lead to lawsuits against the city.

Supporters of the two-tier policy OK’d by the city have said that the chance of some such calamitous occurrence is unlikely because, as Rowe reported, there are usually only “four to six” such accidents involving heavier equipment and the need for non-preference towing services a year.

One, some might argue, is enough, though.

But the question of tiers and inclusion and monopolies and such is not the primary issue here. The issue is an elected body doing what is best for the people it represents. In this case, there are more than 77,000 people living in Albany, around 96,000 in Dougherty County. Over the course of a week, hundreds and even thousands of drivers not from here use city and county roads.

The City Commission, in making its decision about a new wrecker policy, should have considered the safety and convenience of all those drivers who use the roadways, not the 10 or 15 who want to climb onboard the city’s gravy train on the cheap. That the commission took the easy way out is just another bad example of political pandering to special-interest groups and/or cronies. Citizens here deserve better.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_Fletcher on Twitter.