If Allen Seidner weren’t such a sound sleeper, he might have heard the sirens that warn Evanston car owners that snow is failing so hard they must move their cars off the street. If they don’t move their cars, they’ll be towed away. By the time he had scurried outside, his car–a two-door, five-speed 1981 Mazda 626 LX, silver on the outside, light blue inside, with a sunroof, power steering, power brakes, and power side-view mirrors–was almost on the tow truck’s hook. Thirteen months later the car was crushed into scrap.
That’s amazing because Evanston’s snow siren is an obnoxious, piercing screech–testimony to what can only be described as the city’s obsession with towing. They’re always towing cars in Evanston, or so it seems. In fact, during the time Seidner sat in an Evanston coffee shop telling his story, a Saab that was illegally parked outside was towed away.
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The next day Seidner went to the City pound, paid the $45 towing fee, and drove off. But his car’s front end was out of line. “They must have damaged the axle while towing it,” he says. “It was shaking and making a screeching sound so loud that people stopped and looked.”
On February 29, 1988, Seidner received the following note from Carmen Napoli, McKay’s service manager: “Seidner’s [car] was brought into our shop 12-17-87. This vehicle has extensive tow damage to the front end. . . . Hooks were attached to the front end parts to tow car causing extensive damage to these parts.”
Seidner went back to court, where a different clerk told him that any adult can serve a defendant in a pro se case, provided the sheriff has already tried and failed to serve. So Seidner called his brother Loren, who agreed to act as process server. Then he paid the $2 filing fee, filled out a process-service form, went to the chamber of the appropriate judge for certification, waited while the judge finished officiating a wedding, and learned that he’d done it all wrong. “The judge said my brother could not serve the summons because he has an interest in the case. After all he’s my brother, and he might harbor a grudge against Ron’s. There might be a fight. I needed a new process server.”
He ignored his car until December 22, when he received a notice, dated December 20, from the city of Evanston. The notice stated that his car had been towed from McKay’s lot and was in the pound of North Shore Towing at 2527 Oakton in Evanston. The letter concluded: retrieve it in 15 days or it will be crushed.
Confused and depressed, Seidner was almost off the lot when he spied his Mazda, nestled in a pile of tires and hubcaps near the front gate. “There’s my car. There’s my car,” he shouted, and turned around to see three big, tough-looking men staring his way. “That was the only time I felt physically intimidated. They stared at me and said, ‘We told you, your car’s not here.’ I couldn’t believe it. My car was right there, and I had the cash. But they wouldn’t give it to me because technically the car was no longer mine. It didn’t make sense.”
