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Costa Mesa Confiscates Personal Property
I normally do not post on websites or blogs but at this point in time I am so anguished by what my daughter is going through that I have to express it to someone.My daughter is a student at Orange Coast College. She has a little apartment in Costa Mesa on an alley. Her car was "impounded" by the City of Costa Mesa because her vehicle registration was expired. Something most cities write a ticket for and levy a small fine if you show up with the registration renewal. How did a police man get down in that alley and find her car? He would have known from the police computer that the owner was a early twenties girl living on her own. My daughter pays for her school with a Governor's grant from the State and by working part time as a waitress in Newport Beach. She does not have much money. I am not in a financial position to contribute much more than a tank of gas occasionally and an odd $100 every so often. The City of Costa Mesa wanted more money than my daughter had to pay the impound fees, by the time she got the money together, it was over $1000 for three weeks plus her car insurance had expired. The City of Costa Mesa wants to auction off her car if she does not come up with the money by the end of this week. I think the end game here is that the City of Costa Mesa really wants the car and makes the impound fees so high that students and people who are having a hard time making ends meet will walk away from the car. My daughters car is a little Mercedes 230 hatchback that she got a great deal on after her Plymouth Breeze was totaled by a woman running a red light. Mercedes Benz gave her 0% financing and a great price on the little car because it was a lease unwind. The payments on it are less than they would have been on the Toyota Corolla she went to the dealer to buy in the first place. She is not some pampered Orange County princess, she is a good kid working her butt off to get through school. So my daughter is giving money to the City of Costa Mesa that could be better spent on her schooling. The City is generating funds preying on people who are on limited incomes and seizing property and selling it for a traffic offense that just about every city in California writes a ticket for NOT IMPOUND THE CAR. I have to say that last night was a hard night for me, watching my daughter cry her eyes out, just scared to death of losing her car and her means to earn a livelihood. She and I have managed to scratch together the last of the money the City is demanding, unless of course they pull some other fees or surcharge out of their butt to keep the car long enough to auction it. Scratching together means I have to skip a car payment and my daughter has to borrow money from her boss and her friends and live on oatmeal for a month. How do you auction off a $15,000 car for a $1300 bill? Does the owner get the balance of the proceeds or does the city keep it all? As I said I am so outraged by this practice that I feel as if I have to express my anguish over this to someone. I am writing a letter to the Mayor of Costa Mesa, and you know what the response to that will be. This is just another way that politicians in come cities in California have adopted practices to raise money that prey on citizens through outrageous fines, fees and police state thuggery. If any of you astute readers out there have a suggestion or know of some recourse I might have to recover my daughter's money. I would appreciate a note. Posted by: James Carville 2009-02-03 |
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