Altercation leads to policy change
Yellowknife Housing Authority staff will now determine which vehicles are parked illegally; previous policy left decision to tow truck company
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Friday, January 6, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Yellowknife Housing Authority has changed the way it patrols its public housing parking lots following a confrontation involving a woman and a tow truck driver.
That is according to Bob Bies, chief executive officer of the housing authority. He confirmed he knows about the incident, which took place on Dec. 15 on Sissons Court.
According to Barbara Powless-Labelle, her daughter is a public housing tenant on Sissons Court.
While her daughter was away in Edmonton, Powless-Labelle parked in her daughter's parking spot in order to do some cleaning in the apartment.
She said within minutes, she noticed a tow truck hooking up to her car. A verbal confrontation ensued with the tow truck driver calling the housing authority and eventually letting the vehicle off the hook.
Bies said the authority has a policy whereby tenants are told in their lease agreements they must register their vehicles so staff knows which vehicle is supposed to be parked in a given spot.
"We didn't have her on the list," he told Yellowknifer. "(The tow truck operator) had every right to tow her. However that's not the intent of our parking policy. It's not to tow people who are there temporarily."
Bies said the housing authority discontinued this practice once he found out about the altercation. He said he changed the policy because some vehicles, such as Powless-Labelle's - were being towed within minutes of parking illegally without anyone checking with the tenant.
Now, if staff sees an unfamiliar car in a stall in the morning - and it's still there in the afternoon - the vehicle will be towed.
Previously, Bies said the tow truck company had a list of vehicles that were registered to park legally and if an unregistered vehicle was in the spot, it was towed whether there had been a complaint or not.
"In this case, when I found out about it, I told my staff this is not the intent of why we tow vehicles - she was there cleaning her daughter's unit," he said.
Bies said the housing authority has had complaints in the past from tenants about illegally parked cars in their spots, particularly in the winter when people use the stalls to plug in their vehicles.
His advice to public housing tenants going forward is if they know a vehicle that is not registered is going to be parked temporarily in their stall, they should contact the housing authority to give them the head's up.
"I'm not going to blame anyone," Bies said.
"But if the tenant had let us know that her mother was going to be parking there then this situation would have never happened. But it was wrong of us to have the tow truck driver attempt to tow her away. I admit that was wrong to do. As soon as I found out about it - we stopped the practice."
