Anchorage Daily News

Anchorage police have begun seizing dump trucks, big rigs and just about anything else with drivers behind the wheel who owe more than $1,000 in overdue traffic fines as the city ups the ante in its campaign to keep scofflaw drivers off the streets.

But, as business owners are finding out, one result of the push is that when one of their drivers is nailed, the employer is hit with hundreds of dollars in towing, storage and "municipal charges," while the scofflaws themselves remain free to keep on owing.

"It's one thing to impound a vehicle. I don't have so much of a problem with that, but they just impound your vehicle and let the person who's a scofflaw go," said J.P. Freie, owner of Fry's Services, a road construction outfit near Spenard. "It's all a big racket if you ask me. ... What they're doing is extortion. They're extorting money from people who don't have anything to do with it."

One of his drivers, Tommy Robert Thomas, 30, owed the city $1,800 in fines when police stopped him at the wheel of a Kenworth tractor-trailer in late September for a random inspection, police spokeswoman Anita Shell said. Another truck stopped and seized at about the same time was an International dump truck, loaded with dirt, owned by Alaska Storm Enterprises. Its driver, Adrian Abrams, 41, owed the city $1,805, she said.

In both cases, the rigs were towed.

Passed last December, the scofflaw ordinance allows the city to seize the vehicle of any driver who owes more than $1,000 in unpaid traffic tickets, including moving violations such as speeding or running a red light but not unpaid parking tickets. People who pay the fines -- or reduce the amount owed to below the $1,000 threshold -- will have their names removed from the list.

Under the law, it doesn't matter who owns the vehicle. If a scofflaw is behind the wheel, it will be seized, said Lt. Bill Richardson, APD's day shift commander.

"We used to actually arrest people for unpaid tickets, and that just clogged up the jails. Now they go to collections," he said. "This is just another method to encourage people to pay them."

The scofflaws are not arrested but are left to fend for themselves and find alternate transportation, Richardson said.

If the owner of a seized vehicle is not the scofflaw, the owner is responsible for covering the cost of the towing and storage fees, which can range from $80 to $300, as well as the municipal administrative fees that can range from $200 to $390, police Lt. Dave Parker said. Scofflaws whose own vehicles are seized are required to pay those fees plus their fines before their rides will be released.

As of last Wednesday, the city had seized 80 vehicles from scofflaws on Anchorage streets since the law went into effect, said Mindy McCulley, impound supervisor for Anchorage police. Some of those are repeat offenders.

"We have had it where it's been the same driver in two different vehicles in one week," McCulley said.

Police say getting those vehicles back can take up to two business days. But if the vehicle is seized on a Thursday, the vehicle might not be released until the following Monday.

That was how things played out when Freie's driver was stopped and the truck towed. Freie claims the inactive truck cost him $12,000 in lost productivity.

ORIGIN OF ORDINANCE

The driving force behind the policy was Jennie Morris, who was severely injured in a 2006 accident when a driver on a cell phone slammed into her car at Dowling Road and Lake Otis Parkway. The other driver turned out to have had several unpaid traffic violations, prompting Morris to begin lobbying to get the law passed.

There are now roughly 1,350 scofflaws in the city's database, and the current top 50 violators on the "hotsheet" owe anywhere from $2,052 to $9,100 and have racked up between 27 and 75 citations apiece.

"A lot of the people on there are well known to us because they're not only scofflaws when it comes to tickets, you know, they're drug dealers, they're actual criminals," Richardson said. "So it's a way to take the wheels out from under them. Obviously, they're a danger."

While some of the scofflaws may simply not care about their fines or court records, others, like Ralph Kermit Winterrowd, dispute they owe what the city says they do. According to the city's records, Winterrowd, with $6,828 in traffic fines, is Anchorage's No. 4 scofflaw. He maintains he has been unfairly targeted and is planning to file suit against the city.

"I've got a lot of these police after me, and of course they wouldn't let me into the court to defend myself," he said.

The ordinance has allowed the city to collect more than $80,000 in fines since it was adopted. City officials, however, maintain that the law is about making the streets safer, not generating revenue.

"The Scofflaw Ordinance is not about the fines, but rather about public safety and consequences of actions," Mick Fornelli, senior administrative officer for the city's treasury department, said in an e-mail response to questions. "There have been nearly 90 drivers removed from the roads and almost 70 more individuals who have visited the Municipality to clear up their delinquent fines to avoid the potential of having their vehicles impounded."

Richardson said one of the goals behind the push on commercial vehicles is to make businesses aware of the law and, it is hoped, prompt them to check their drivers before allowing them on the road, at least on the company's time. That will keep scofflaw drivers off the streets and make the roads safer, he said.

Though truck owners like Freie say they already check their drivers' driving records, they plan to start checking the scofflaw list to avoid getting hit with more fees in the future. Not that they necessarily agree with it.

"We just don't stop and think about checking it all the time," said Jim Baxter, co-owner of Northern Gravel. "It's not something that's my priority every morning, to go down and check the scofflaw list."

Baxter recently learned first-hand about the law when one of his trucks, driven by his son, Alan Baxter, 21, was seized after police ran the younger Baxter's name and found out he was on the scofflaw list.

Baxter was forced to shell out hundreds of dollars in towing, storage and city fees to get his truck out of the impound lot.

But his son still owes $1,109 in fines and remains a scofflaw, according to city records.

"It ain't about safety, keeping the drivers off the road," Baxter said. "If it was about keeping them drivers off the road, then when they pull a driver over like that, why don't they take them down and make them pay the fines? It's about collecting the revenue."

Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589.

TOP 10 TRAFFIC SCOFFLAWS

1. Darnell Jones, 49, owes $9,100

2. Eldridge Bradley, 39, owes $8,783

3. Edwin Criswell, 40, owes $7,983

4. Ralph Winterrowd, 66, owes $6,828

5. Paul Baldwin, 39, owes $6,590

6. Jerry Bates, 27, owes $6,451

7. Donald Dorgan, 36, owes $6,448

8. Tracy Atkins, 53, owes $6,427

9. Matthew Herron, 38, owes $6,151

10. Robert McCurry, 64, owes $5,619

Source: Municipality of Anchorage