City Gives Junked Cars a Push Toward Oblivion

Almost 100 abandoned cars were towed Thursday from streets in the northeastern San Fernando Valley in what Los Angeles officials said was the first in a series of sweeps to clear away junked vehicles.

A handful of city officials, including Councilmen Joel Wachs and Ernani Bernardi, supervised as 15 tow trucks from the five police garages in the Valley began hauling abandoned cars away from Branford Street in Sun Valley and from nearby neighborhoods.

There are many automobile dismantling yards along Branford and the area has become a troublesome dumping ground for abandoned cars, according to Jimmie Morgan, senior traffic supervisor for the city’s parking enforcement division. The Valley’s other popular dumping grounds for abandoned cars include the industrial and residential areas of Pacoima, Sylmar, Lake View Terrace and Sunland-Tujunga, he said.

“There have got to be more of these sweeps,” said Bernardi, whose district includes parts of the northeastern Valley. “We have got to get these abandoned cars off the street.”

The problem of abandoned vehicles in the city was the subject of a three-month study by a 50-member task force, whose recommendations last month included one calling on parking enforcement officers, street maintenance crews and tow truck operators to make periodic sweeps to remove junked vehicles.

Morgan said that Thursday’s sweep was made possible because operators of each of the police garages agreed to haul as many as 20 vehicles from the northeast Valley. Normally, the police garages in Northridge, Canoga Park, North Hollywood and Van Nuys only tow vehicles abandoned in their own neighborhoods, he said.

Without the aid of the other operators, the police garage in the northeast Valley, located in Pacoima, can only tow and store about 20 to 25 vehicles a day, he said.

The police garages find out from the state the names of the vehicles’ last registered owners. Each owner is notified, and given 21 days to claim the car before the tow yard is authorized to auction it off.

Cars that are not auctioned off are sold to auto dismantlers or sold as scrap.

David Mays, an aide to Wachs who helped organize the sweep, said many of the cars picked up had been on the streets for months.

“We’re just playing catch-up,” he said. “What we hope is that these sweeps will bring the number of abandoned vehicles down to a manageable size and allow us to respond in a more reasonable amount of time.”