National City Is Poised to Hire a Towing Company that Got Suspended 

National City is preparing to award a lucrative contract for municipal towing services to a towing company that was recently suspended by the city of San Diego for failing to pay more than $279,000 in overdue invoices. 

San Diego suspended Cortes Towing Enterprises last September after the company fell into arrears on impound fees it was supposed to collect on the city’s behalf from vehicle owners whose cars had been towed. 

The department later reversed the suspension after the company paid the overdue invoices. 

Despite that suspension, National City staff employees, including top city executives and members of the police department, recommended that the City Council vote to award Cortes one of two towing contracts up for competitive bidding this year. 

Reached by phone on Thursday, Johnny Cortes, owner of Cortes Towing, said he was in the middle of work and unable to talk. He said he would call later. As of press time, Voice was unable to reach him for comment. 

National City Manager Doug Schulze said city staff were aware of Cortes’ unpaid invoices but were told by San Diego police that the arrears stemmed from an administrative error and were quickly corrected. 

“The selection committee made the determination that the [missed] payments were made when Cortes received the suspension notice,” Schulze said. As a result, he said, the suspension was lifted and, effectively, “there was no suspension.” 

Cities and other public agencies contract with towing providers to tow cars that violate parking laws or otherwise need to be removed from city streets. 

Agencies don’t pay towing companies. Instead, the companies make money by charging vehicle owners steep fees, sometimes up to hundreds of dollars. The fees and steady business make municipal contracts lucrative. 

One towing company owner estimated the National City contract could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to a successful bidder. 

For more than a decade, National City contracted with two companies for towing services: Angelo’s Towing and RoadOne, both based in San Diego. 

The companies’ contracts are set to expire at the end of this month. 

In May, a team of city and police department employees put the contracts out to bid and began reviewing seven bidders, including Angelo’s and RoadOne. 

After months of site visits and inspections, the team selected San Diego-based Cortes Towing Enterprises and El Cajon-based Tony’s Auto Center and Towing. 

The city’s bidding process requires towing companies to disclose “any debarment or other disqualification or removal as a contractor or service provider for any federal, state or local entities within the last 10 years.” 

The city’s staff report does not mention the Cortes suspension or say whether Cortes reported it to city evaluators.  

Cortes, the staff report says, had “positive references” from other unspecified agencies. 

After the city posted its bidding recommendation, word of Cortes’ success despite its San Diego suspension spread quickly in the small and fiercely competitive world of municipal towing companies. 

Two companies – Angelo’s and Quality Towing, another unsuccessful bidder – emailed city officials to protest the bidding process, citing instances when city staff supposedly ignored problems at both Cortes and Tony’s, or downplayed other companies’ positive qualities. 

Several company owners, including the owners of Angelo’s and Quality Towing, declined to comment. The owner of Tony’s could not be reached. 

Brad Ramsay, the owner of RoadOne, said, “We’re a decades-long proven vendor…We’re disappointed in the city’s evaluation and the selection of [a company] with a problematic work history with the San Diego Police Department.” 

“The city failed to vet [the company] thoroughly,” Ramsay said. 

Mayor Ron Morrison said Cortes’ suspension “should definitely throw up a yellow flag…That doesn’t sound good.” 

Morrison said he was not aware of any complaints against Angelo’s or RoadOne, the city’s current towing providers. 

The city’s staff report says Angelo’s was disqualified because it did not turn in proper documentation from California Highway Patrol. The report noted a gap in RoadOne’s towyard fencing and showed the company charged customers higher prices for some services. 

Morrison said the City Council is set to vote on the towing contracts next week. 

“It’s unusual that you have two companies that have good reputations and we’ve had them for the full length of a contract [and] both get knocked out,” he said. “[These bidding processes] can get extremely messy.” 

A note about next week: I’ll be on vacation next week and I won’t be able to write a newsletter. Which is too bad because I still have a backlog of other news I want to write about. Tune in the following week for the latest South County drama.