Saturday, January 18, 2025
AZLE — During an Oct. 15 meeting, Wells Woods Wrecker Service was approved by the Azle City Council as the Azle Police Department’s sole contracted towing service. This comes after city council members passed a revised version of its wrecker ordinance during a Feb. 20 meeting. The previous iteration of the ordinance locked the police department into a rotation between three different local towing companies.
In February, Police Chief Ben Hall presented the proposed revisions to the ordinance, explaining the need for better control over towing services. Hall mentioned complaints received from citizens about the treatment by towing companies. When Hall first took the job as police chief, he said he was handed a box of complaints by the interim chief regarding issues citizens had had after tows were made following infractions. According to Hall, Azle’s former wrecker ordinance had “no teeth” to address these problems.
“There has to be due process involved and there’s a lot of hoops to jump through in order to enforce any of those expectations,” Hall said in the February meeting. “The (old) ordinance doesn't really give us a means to address service issues, means to protect our citizens, if they're mistreated.”
Generally, Hall said the city receives a call requiring towing services at least once per day, though he notes last December that the total number for the month was as little as 18.
Tim McMahon, owner of Tim’s Towing, attended city council meetings and other events in January and February in opposition to the removal of the rotation. In a phone call with the Tri-County Reporter McMahon voiced complaints with the city in his dealings earlier this year.
“I've gotten a raw deal on this,” McMahon said. “If I made any profit in the last two years working for the city, I've shelled it out to attorneys to try and fade the heat on all the nonsense they got going on. Example, I hired a guy from Houston that knows tow businesses are meant to operate in this century, and he came up from Houston for me for a day and sit down with the city attorney, and he got it, he got it resolved to a 30-day suspension, instead of booting me off (the rotation) altogether.”
Ultimately, Wells Woods was the only towing company to submit a proposal to the city by the meeting date. The new contract for Wells Woods is good for one year with an option to extend three additional annual terms. The police department will now call Wells Woods Wrecker Service for all its towing needs.
“I just want to continue doing what we do,” owner Deborah “Gigi” Burrows said at the meeting.
