Warden removing hulk vehicles
Cameron Probert/Columbia Basin Herald<br> Warden Police Chief Rick Martin suggested cars, like this one on South Alder Avenue, with flat tires and lacking registration tabs could be considered hulk vehicles.
WARDEN — Warden police are cleaning up abandoned vehicles in the city.
Police are in the process of notifying owners to fix vehicles and get them registered, or get rid of them, Police Chief Rick Martin said.
“We started on trailers a while back, you know ?people living in trailers is a violation of our city ordinance … We got some movement there. Now, we’re starting on cars,” Martin told the city council during a recent meeting.
The vehicles have expired registrations, flat tires with debris piling up underneath the vehicles. Martin said there are too many for the police to handle at once, so they are processing about 10 cars at a time.
“There’s so many cars in town, I don’t want to have too many open cases on hulk vehicles because then it may not become manageable,” he said. “When we get rid of one, we’ll add another one on.”
Presently, they are starting on the east side of the city and moving west, Martin said.
“So if someone on the east side of town or the west side of town complains that somebody on the west side of town isn’t getting their cars towed, we’ll get there eventually … We’ll just move slowly, slowly but surely.”
Councilmember Mike Leavitt asked how long it would take to get a vehicle towed.
Martin said if a vehicle is parked on the street, when the police leave a 24-hour notice, the owner may have a week or more before having to act.
“At least 24 hours is the answer for that. The other ones that are on private property is quite a considerable amount of paperwork, but once we’re done with that process, soon as he takes them he can crush them right there,” he said.
Martin said the vehicles they’re going after have been parked there for a while. Some people simply haven’t known how to dispose of their vehicle.
He added people can avoid getting their car towed if they renew their registration, fix the flat tires and clean up around the vehicle.
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