Melissa Bailey Photo
Goldson: Time for a Citizens Bill of Rights.
Annie DuBose-Frasier had just brought groceries inside when a towing company snatched up her SUV — and made her pay a second time for a $600 tax bill.
The tow on Sept. 15 came due to a clerical error.
Aldermen fast-tracked approval to refund her at their full board meeting last week.
West Rock Alderman Darnell Goldson, who shepherded through the approval, said he was outraged to find out not only that she was double-billed, but also about how long it was going to take to fix the problem.
The slow solution and the error, he said, are an example of what leads to citizens’ lack of faith in city government.
Reached by phone after the meeting, DuBose-Frasier recounted what happened to her. (She declined to be photographed for this article.)
The ordeal began on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 4:27 p.m. DuBose-Frasier had just taken her niece grocery shopping because she doesn’t have a way to get to the store. They had just brought the groceries inside her niece’s home, near the intersection of Orchard and Goffe.
Someone in the house looked out the window and noticed her car, a black 2010 Nissan Murano crossover SUV, was being hauled away.
“You’ve gotta be kidding,” came her reply. “Within five minutes they just snuck up and towed it.”
“It was traumatizing, to say the least, to have my car towed” out of the blue, she said.
DuBose-Frasier made some phone calls and “finally found out where it was.”
Crown Auto Center, which handles all the city’s tows for delinquent in motor-vehicle taxes, took her car to its lot at 388 Crown St.
City records charged she hadn’t payed her car tax bill, which was due on July 1.
That’s not right, DuBose-Frasier replied. “I paid the lease company like I always do.”
She called her leasing company, which confirmed the city had cashed its check for her most recent tax bill.
But the city still wouldn’t let her off the hook.
In order to get her car back, DuBose-Frasier had to pay $646.88 to the tax collector — for a bill she had already paid to her leasing company on July 20.
DuBose-Frasier said she had to borrow money to cover the sudden expense.
She got her car back — then started on a mission to get her money back. On Sept. 20, she submitted a request to the tax collector for a refund of $639.88. The tax collector told her she would be getting a check in four to six weeks.
Four to six weeks? She balked.
“I can’t wait four to six weeks,” she recalled saying. “This is ridiculous.”
“When you owe the city, you have to pay them or they add penalties, they add interest, or they put a lien on your property,” she pointed out. So she went to the aldermanic Tax Abatement Committee for help.
Goldson, who was at the committee meeting last month but is not a member, heard her tale. DuBose-Frasier lives on Diamond Street. She isn’t Goldson’s constituent, but he agreed to help her resolve her problem.
People who overpay taxes or suffer from clerical errors can make their case for a tax refund to the tax collector. Those refunds are routinely processed once a month, under a “unanimous consent” line item at the Board of Aldermen’s full board meeting.
Goldson said she had missed September’s deadline by one day — and would have to wait another month for her payment to be processed.
He found that out when he called her Monday morning and asked if her problem got sorted out. She replied that it hadn’t. She said he picked up copies of her tax refund application and told her he’d get it fixed.
“I was surprised,” she said, “because I’m used to them not doing anything.”
Goldson said when he looked into her case, “I was frustrated and disappointed” to find out how much time it was going to take to get her refund.
So on Monday he requested a last-minute amendment to the board’s agenda just to add in her refund request. The board granted the request unanimously.
That took care of the double-tax problem.
There’s still the towing fee.
Crown Auto charged $77 for the tow, $4 for a “fuel surcharge,” and $5.11 in taxes for a total of $86.11, according to a document DuBose-Frasier submitted to the board.
To get that money back, she’ll have to go to another committee, Goldson said — the city’s Small Claim Litigation Committee, which deals with claims of under $5,000.
Goldson said one of the most disturbing aspects of the case was that the woman told him that when she first approached the city, she was told it would take “months” to resolve the problem.
He reinforced his call for a Citizens Bill of Rights to address situations like these.
“Unfortunately, there is no incentive for city staffers to be helpful to taxpayers, and no disincentive for them to avoid making these sort of mistakes (the original bad tow),” he wrote in an email.
“So this stuff keeps happening, and citizens get more frustrated and disillusioned with their government, which eventually leads to 29% turnout during elections.”
Mayoral spokesman Adam Joseph said the problem stemmed from the fact that the state Department of Motor Vehicles had two sets of plates on record for the car.
“Ms. DuBose-Frasier had been leasing her car from Nissan, and had been paying her taxes through them since Nissan had title of the leased car. She eventually bought the car from them and got a new license plate,” he reported. “But DMV still had both license plates in its system, so a bill was sent to Ms. DuBose-Fraser and the leasing company. She paid Nissan, but didn’t pay the bill sent to her home, so she was booted. She paid the tax so she could get her car back.”
City Tax Collector Maurine Villani checked city records “and determined she was due a refund” and “was happy to work with the Board of Aldermen to resolve the issue,” Joseph added.
Goldson said he has heard repeated stories of people getting double-billed because of similar leasing situation.
DuBose-Frasier said the episode has left her feeling “disgruntled.”
“I just think that City Hall is just a lot of red tape. Just a lot of round and round in circles.”