A tip for city residents who make the city?s abandoned vehicle hit list: Even if you move it, they will come.
City tow trucks, that is.
Linda Stemberger knows this to be true, as her son?s late-model Mazda RX-7 was towed three months ago from her Federal Hill neighborhood ? never to be seen again.
“The whole thing is wrong,” she said. “I told them it wasn?t abandoned.”
Stemberger, who lives on Gittings Avenue, said the trouble began when the car was ticketed as abandoned by the city. Stemberger said the car had been parked in the same spot for several weeks, but no one had complained to her directly.
“Parking is tight up here,” she said. “Maybe a neighbor called it in; I don?t know.”
After she received the notice that the car would be towed, Stemberger promptly moved the vehicle around the corner to a new space that she said was rarely used. But it was to no avail, because a few days later the city towed the car.
“I couldn?t believe it,” she said. “I was so upset.”
Fined for a ticket plus towing costs, Stemberger found it difficult to come up with the roughly $400 tab fast enough to get the car out of the impound lot.
“I was in between paychecks,” said the State Highway Administration employee.
City Department of Transportation officials said legally registered cars are not towed as abandoned.
Stemberger filed an appeal with the city to get the car back, but at the hearing the judge said the vehicle was legally abandoned because it had not passed an emissions test.
“We told him we had a year extension on the emission test, but the guy just did not care,” Stemberger said.
Before she could pay, the car was sold. She said the sale happened three to four weeks after the tow. Now her son, Steven Easterly, 29, is without his car, and Stemberger feels like they have not been treated fairly.
“After they sold the car, they still say we owe $350,” she said.
“As far as I?m concerned, they stole it.”
