The agenda for Thursday’s East Ridge City Council meeting is a lengthy one that includes adopting a multi-million dollar budget, setting the tax rate and discussion of the city’s wrecker ordinance.
I’ll venture to guess right now that more time will be spent by our council discussing the wrecker ordinance than any other single item before them.
The reason is simple … money.
The City of East Ridge has three local wrecker services on what’s called the District Towing list. Those wrecker companies are Cannon’s, Broome’s Wrecker and East Ridge Auto Electric. Broome’s and East Ridge Auto Electric are located right next door to each other on Ringgold Road at John Ross Road. Everybody in the city knows that. Those two businesses are owned by the same man, Buddy Broome.
Several years ago, I had a “classic” 1986 VW Cabriolet that would break down every other time I drove it. When I got stranded I called Broome’s for a tow. That tow cost me $50. I used Broome’s exclusively. They are good people who do good work.
Now, according to the city’s ordinance. If I broke down or was involved in an accident and my car was in the road and I had a police officer call for a “District Wrecker,” that tow would cost me $125.
That’s the reason why in 2013 Butch Bryson, a former East Ridge police officer who got into the wrecker business in North Georgia, so desperately lobbied the City Council for a spot on the District Wrecker list. Bryson wanted a piece of the pie to insure his planned storefront towing location in East Ridge would succeed.
For a period of months Bryson or his representatives persisted in their efforts before the council. Ordinance 787, the city’s towing ordinance, was dragged out. That ordinance, which was adopted on second reading on Dec. 13, 2007, has a section in it that reads: “No district wrecker operators shall jointly use any real or personal property with any other district wrecker operator except as provided herein.”
The provision goes on with a bunch of legal definitions about what constitutes “real property.” The upshot is that on its face, the ordinance wouldn’t allow both of Broome’s businesses to be on the district wrecker rotation.
Councilmen Denny Manning and Larry Sewell said that Ordinance 787 wasn’t right. They both publicly said that they distinctly remembered there was a provision in that ordinance that they adopted in 2007 that would “grandfather in” Broome’s businesses and allow him to continue on with two-thirds of the district towing.
It gets better. At some point during this time somebody in the wrecker business came forward with a copy of Ordinance 787 that did indeed contain the “grandfather” clause.
Here’s the provision in this version of Ordinance 787: “District wrecker permits issued prior to September 1, 1989, may be renewed without regard to the requirement for separate recorded parcels of real property …”
The introduction of this document prompted a TBI investigation into “forged public documents.” That investigation lasted almost a year. In the end it concluded that the genuine ordinance was the one inside the records of City Hall that did not contain any “grandfather” clause.
That brings us up to speed.
Here’s a potential problem. The official minutes from City Hall of the Dec. 13, 2007 meeting in which Ordinance 787 was adopted on second reading _ 31 months after its first reading on May 12, 2005 _ has no record of how The Council voted. The minutes state: “Councilmember (Tom) Card made a motion, seconded by Councilmember (Denny) Manning, to approve Ordinance No. 787 on second and final reading.” The end.
Every other action from the minutes of the meeting detail how individual council members voted. In fact, every action taken during that meeting, whether it was an ordinance or resolution, was adopted by unanimous vote, and it was so noted.
State law addresses the issue of public votes in TCA 8-44-104 If there is no record of how the council voted the ordinance “shall be void and of no effect.”
So, Ordinance 787 may not even be in effect.
Another twist, as if there is not already enough. Ordinance 787 was to have amended the previous wrecker ordinance, No. 783. Both ordinances are essentially identical, especially as it pertains to regulations for district wreckers.
Perhaps the first question should be is Ordinance 787 void because there was no record of the vote?
If that’s the case, the City Council could be amending the wrong ordinance … just like it did last month when it amended the wrong resolution pertaining to the Border Region Act. They had to go back and amend the correct one, Resolution 2389 the following meeting.
And, by the way, there was a record of that vote _ 4-1 with Councilman Jacky Cagle voting against it.
