Stolen cars still collect tickets and city can’t do anything about it

By Amanda Patterson

  Cecil Adjety was surprised to find that his car had been stolen. But when he received a notice that his stolen car had accumulated $700 in unpaid parking tickets he was shocked.
  Adjety, a Somerville resident, stumbled into a communication gap between the Somerville police and the Traffic and Parking departments. Each group documents activity related to stolen cars and accumulated tickets, but a lack of interdepartmental communication forestalls any hope of unearthing overlapping cases.

  In July, a month after he reported his 1999 Jetta stolen, Adjety received an overdue payment notice and was sent on a runaround to rectify the violations.
  Adjety said Somerville Traffic and Parking told him to come back later because his tickets weren‚Äôt in the system.
  Nothing happened.
  Then they took his papers and said that they would call him.
  Again, nothing happened, said Adjety.
  Then Adjety got a call from the Somerville Police. After 5 tickets and no response from the owner in 90 days, his car was officially a scofflaw offender and had accrued enough tickets to be towed.     Although the ticket charges were eventually reversed, Adjety‚Äôs insurance company had replaced the car by that time it was recovered.
   If the Traffic and Parking department collaborated with the police and used available technology to track stolen cars and amassing tickets, drawn out and expensive ordeals could be prevented, said Adjety.
   ‚ÄúI‚Äôm sure it‚Äôs possible,‚Äù said James Halloran, the man who runs Somerville‚Äôs school, city, police and fire databases. He is not, however, involved in the Traffic and Parking database. All ticketing, billing, payments, computer maintenance and database work are contracted to Affiliated Computer Services. The handheld computers that Parking Control Officers carry transmit all information regarding tickets to the main ACS database, said former mayoral spokesman Mark Horan.
    A parking office window attendant, who declined to be identified, has worked there for less than a year and has seen two or three cases like Adjety‚Äôs.
   Another parking control officer confirmed that his computer would not inform him if he ticketed a stolen car.
   ‚ÄúThat‚Äôs a good idea, though,‚Äù he said.
    Deciding whether a car is stolen or parked carelessly can be difficult, because most stolen cars these days aren‚Äôt burglarized, said William Tauro, of Pat‚Äôs Towing.
    ‚ÄúThe days when people stole cars for parts are over, everything is too specific now,‚Äù Tauro said.   ‚ÄúNine times out of ten cars are stolen because somebody wanted a ride.‚Äù
    Cases like Adjety‚Äôs fall through the cracks between departments, so neither the police nor the traffic control officers know exactly how often in happens. Pat‚Äôs is always the intermediary between Traffic and Parking and the police. The two city departments have no direct contact, or knowledge of each other‚Äôs connection to a particular car. The log at Pat‚Äôs Towing could tell the story, but according to Tauro, information can only be accessed for specific vehicles, and only with the police claim check number in hand.   
    Any car reported stolen in the United States will be put on a federal list received by every police department in the country, according to Officer Bob Favuzza of the Massachusetts State Police.
Information about stolen cars is public, said Frank Bates, crime statistician for the Somerville police. “You could read it in the paper every week,” he said, adding that connecting the databases would be useful.
   ‚ÄúIt would help everybody involved. It would help the police, the people whose cars are stolen. It would probably help insurance companies, too,‚Äù Bates said.
   Insurance companies have to replace a stolen car after thirty days, according to John M. Connolly, of Wedgewood Crane and Connolly Insurance in Davis Square. It would be a valuable service if it would help get cars returned to their owners faster, he said. But it is unclear how much it would cost the city to make the change.
    It isn‚Äôt a big problem, said Warsh, and currently changing the system is an expense the city can‚Äôt afford.