Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: I know. You're fine. Kim, one of the two You're fine. Came to see

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: if he really is here. He he is.

[Speaker 0]: I I don't think we're that. Okay.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: I was half kidding. We are Senate Transportation. We are, going live again. We have, we're talking about the miscellaneous DMV bill, and we're talking with Josh Hanford, and I think we're talking about section 16 18 or 19 17 or 18? 18, it

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: looks like. 18. Yes. Josh?

[Josh Schenberger, Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT)]: Yes. So for the record, Josh Schenberger, director of intergovernmental relations at the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. Thanks

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: for having me in.

[Josh Schenberger, Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT)]: Certainly an area that I I I don't work in a lot. I am here to talk about section 18 to speak about the suspension of the requirement for a CDL license during certain weather events. I I don't have a background on on the sort of a tenth of this. I I I believe, it probably has good a tenth for emergencies and so forth. So don't question that and certainly, wanna chat more with DMV about, sort of the reasons for this and and how this works. Just wanna describe a little bit of where VLCT might have some concerns on this. VLCT has a commercial vehicle manual for our municipalities and and the employees that drive these, and the folks that put that together from the risk management and the the attorneys that advise on on on sort of matters have raised concerns with this, that,

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: you know, these are the

[Josh Schenberger, Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT)]: folks that advise municipalities on on on matters. One series of concerns which maybe are addressed in the bills, look more at it with an attorney, sort of, can we do this with the federal? Does this really preempt the federal requirements and their statutes and their regulations? I'm sure that can be answered. The bigger issue is more about the liability, concerns we would have. There may be very good reasons to to to move some of these vehicles during a flood event or or put someone in this position. But if if you're having people that aren't familiar with this work, you know, driving in the worst conditions, we're we're concerned about sort of safety and risks issues there. I think we'd be much more open to consider this if municipalities were granted the same monetary liability protections as the state has regarding their employees when accidents do occur, not criminal, but accidents occur. The state has a liability, monetary liability cap that provides some protection. It's $500,000 per occurrence, 2,000,000 aggregate. Municipalities aren't granted any liability cap, and we're an extreme outlier. Every state that we have surveyed in the Northeast has a liability cap. Massachusetts is as low as $100,000 New Hampshire's is $400,000 but none of them have no liability cap. This is an issue VLCT has brought up on a number of occasions when there's

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: new

[Josh Schenberger, Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT)]: liability concerns, whether it be the salt bill we talked about last year, reduction in salt, three acre stormwater permit, where municipalities that have much more property and much more direct contact with most citizens than the state does without these liability protections. There is a bill that's on the wall in, house judiciary from last year, h one thirty eight, that deals with this. I know that's not your committee jurisdiction, but perhaps, if this conversation was to be furthered in this DMV bill and we wanna look to gaining DLC support for this sort of emergency situation of allowing folks without CDLs to drive these commercial vehicles, perhaps a consideration in this bill of of some sort of emergency provision that would kick in that same liability with the state during these events in case the worst case happens and there was an accident, someone's hurt because we know, unfortunately, the first place folks go to look for sort of relief is to We have deep experience with very expensive lawsuits across the state. Municipalities are charged with the responsibility to defend their employees, and we've had multiple cases of this happening that have cost the taxpayer substantial dollars, because you have to remember that municipalities are insured by their own taxpayers through insurance policies, which the league provides, and so this is a matter more about that liability concern and and the risks we have that are much different than state employees that may be asked to perform the same duty.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thank

[Speaker 0]: you very much. Thanks for being here. Hopefully you can provide written testimony because you have put some numbers in there and I wanna make sure I have that. And I was going to ask about the insurance companies basically, which it's part of ELC. That's important. And I don't know how we came to get this language, who was advocating for it, but it

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: does include Okay, so they advocated. It didn't deal liability insurance issue.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, I think that's a really valid concern and your point about this, the whole premise is that it would be in an emergency situation which is, you know it has its own Yeah, and I would be concerned also just about the person, the driver too. Mean their safety is really important. So those are my concerns, and you'll hear from the NV. Thank you.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah.

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Before

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: don't move, I'm gonna ask the commissioner to comment. Sure.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Happy to add a little color to this as well. Andrew Collier, I'm Richard DMV for the record. So this came about as an agency initiative or thought process, and as we've worked through that, we felt it was appropriate and should be extended to allow municipalities. So the piece about liability did not come up in that conversation. It was more high level for the agency personnel to be able to, in times of emergency, get equipment moved, back go, having a prolonged event, whether it's weather like a snowstorm or flooding event, get some fresh people in the seat, because I would argue is more dangerous for someone staying in the seat for sixteen plus hours in a CDL vehicle than to have someone that is familiar with the vehicle come in and relieve that person for a few hours who gets rest and get that person rested and back in. This is not when we say putting someone fresh to see, this is someone that's gonna be familiar with that. I'll use the example of the larger towns in Vermont that have park and recreation departments, they have five fifty dump trucks and they operate equipment, they just might not have a CDL, and you're able to kind of pull someone from that team to come in familiar with equipment and help out if needed, and again, are gonna be emergency situations. You're not gonna have a lot of other traffic or vehicles out there, it's gonna be a concentrated event. As far as the federal government, ease with the FMCSA, because this is dealing with intrastate or just in Vermont, we're able to flex, have that emergency authorization to use this kind of like we reduce the hours of service needed for propane in the winter, or we just did one recently for SALT, for hours of service for trucks to travel to New Hampshire and Portsmouths to haul SALT because it's a Vermont decoration. We do work with FMCSA, but as far as that fingerpiece is concerned.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. I understand why you would want that flexibility. I can see that.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: You But, know, and that's a valid point of being missed outside on the fly building. And

[Speaker 0]: operability too, just for practicality. Go ahead, Pat.

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Yeah. And the CEO program, I don't know. I think it isn't it federal?

[Speaker 0]: It

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: it well, they have the federal regulations at

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Does that oversee it? Yeah. I just wonder if we'd be flying flying in the face of federal regulations for that on CDL mile driver on the highway.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Well, that's exactly right. Yeah.

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I wonder also if it would diminish the amount of employees that would want to get their CDL if they didn't really have to know, pod drivers, I don't know if they

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: make more money or not, but yeah. I don't know.

[Speaker 0]: You definitely make more.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: If Well, I think this is this is directed directly at emergencies. You know? I

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Well, every snowstorm Well, I'm I'm

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: I'll bring up a specific situation.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Town

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: clerk's office sits here, the fire department sits here, and the fire department is funded by the town and the town helps them buy the trucks. It's in the flood zone. Three feet of water in the fire station. If the floodwaters are coming up and there isn't anybody there with a should they leave the fire trucks in there to be flooded? Or should they drive them a half a mile and get them off the hill where they're not gonna be flooded?

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Well, that's what I thought this bill did when I first read it. Now that I'm hearing guy can get behind the wheel of a plow on interstate.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, I I don't think we want that. And I think we wanna make sure it's narrow. But in the in coming from an area where we've had towns flooded and Johnson said two floods, and I know the the fire stations in the in the flood zone, I can't imagine we'd want them to sit there and let the trucks fly. I really But in that limited case, if someone jumps into the truck, I think it's clearly a question. I don't know what the federal regulations are or if this runs up against any of that. And I would say to you, we probably would wanna hear from somebody around the federal rules to that. Because I do know if you're agricultural, you can drive a truck for 150 miles as long as you're delivering agricultural products in a tractor trailer truck without a CDL license. So I'm and I'm not sure of of what the rules are, but I think if it this was narrowed to an emergency, I and it might be helpful, I know the league has its own attorneys, if you had some connections with some place that had some exemptions, at least in the case of this emergency, and if that language came across this table, I suspect we'd wanna at least take it up with the judiciary community here. Does that make sense?

[Speaker 0]: Yes. Just, it's hard to legislate what rules you can break in an emergency. You know, that's, that's challenging. Yeah, I, I, I, so I think we should talk more and talk with the attorneys and I think it's very reasonable for the municipalities to want, especially if the state would be counting on municipalities to help. I don't know if that's why they're in here, but if they are going to be in this section and we do go forward, I think municipalities need liability protection because it's just not fair.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yeah, just to stress, the liability protection we're looking for is no different than what the state has. Legislature granted these liability caps to the state and all the state buildings, property, state parks, all the employees. A decade and a half ago and whatever reason at the time, they didn't include municipalities in that $500,000 monetary gap. So I didn't

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: this is for you, commissioner. Again, was the intent here move equipment to snowstorm? How narrow is the intent? You know, the first thing I think of is a is a flood because we've had floods in the air. I'm not sure I wanna go to just a snowstorm, but if you're gonna lose a truck, right?

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Absolutely. It was narrow and yes, it's not just a snowstorm. The thaw was 's a storm as a child. It was like a four day storm. Yeah. I think it was three to four feet of snow in Colchester. We haven't had one those in a

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: while, but it's something that would

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: beyond normal course of business. So for, you know, that is depleting your assets. It's moving equipment in a in a in a one thing and then just only using the winter example because we're in winter. A snowstorm that's so stretched out that, you know, a limited use of additional resources to come in and assist were out of cold. Again, this would not be used as a snow event like we had last night or snowstorm or anything like that. This is an emergency. It's a high bar to

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Just a So

[Speaker 0]: there are lots of emergencies, right? And we couldn't even list all of the emergencies because there are things that haven't even happened that could be emergencies. And mean there are situations where if a person is hurt and a doctor helps them in an emergency that the doctor's not liable in a certain way. Don't know exactly how that works. But it could be already the case that if there's an emergency which would mean generally people are harmed or could be harmed, you might already be able to do this because the CDL isn't the only thing that's constricting you. There's other things that constrict people. Like, what if the person's like 18 and knows how to drive one of the trucks? I mean, there's a lot of 18 year olds. So this might I would talk to our attorneys a

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: little bit. I was gonna ask, was this drafted by Yeah,

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: this came from DMV.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Could we get your attorney in here to talk about that? And

[Speaker 0]: think,

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in here what I'm hearing is on a very limited basis, we might be willing to I don't think anybody wants, in the case that I brought up, the fly up, the trucks not to be able to be moved. I don't think we we have I don't we don't want them up on the roads in in the middle of a snowstorm, you know, where they're not gonna lose a quid. Yeah. And if there was some ability within the department in your legal staff to take a look at if they're moving something just to get a piece of equipment out of harm's way in an emergency like that, is there a way to give some cover? And we would consider that. But I think it needs to be very narrow. Does that does that Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Or very broad. I mean, you can like, when there's a fire? Well,

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: don't think the fire is broad. Think,

[Speaker 0]: you know Like an emergency. An emergency. Yeah.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: I do know Damian and our legal counsel are are working on the term emergency. Okay. Just had a meeting yesterday on that and they are.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: And so it would be helpful to get your attorney in the chair to talk about a fire is another a building's on fire. Right, it doesn't have to be that kind of. And I think there is some sympathy for the question that they raise about moving equipment and having some cover for liability. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And you'll probably see some new language and I'm glad that it come back. Excellent. Thank you. We have EMT towing. That's it, Tony.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Morning, Morning. Morning. Up seat. Yeah.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think we have chairs.

[Speaker 0]: Two chairs. Oh, there's a chair in there or even a chair.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: And if you would both like to introduce yourselves and

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Sure. I'm Bob Malmony. I'm the president of Vermont Tow Association, also owner of DMV Towing and Recovery in Brownington, Vermont and Laneville, Vermont.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Herb Barton, vice president of Vermont Tow Association, also TDI Truck and Trailer Repair and Towing in St. Albans and Swamp and Vermont. Perfect. You're here to talk about section thirteenth of our miscellaneous DMV. Yes.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: That is the abandoned motor vehicle channel.

[Speaker 0]: Good for him looking at you.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: I I read it. It looks like at the bottom there, you're trying to have that so that whoever would call for a tow would pay the tow company and then get reimbursed from DMV. That my understanding of it? Guess, so how the current process works, if you tow a vehicle, you have, I think it's seventy two hours, and then you would apply for an abandoned motor vehicle with DMV. You submit the required paperwork with VIN verifications. They then email it in. They send the last known registered owner. They have thirty days to respond to the letter. If they don't get a response, I believe they send a certified letter. And then after that thirty days, they would call us and they say, Do you still have the vehicle? Have you heard from anybody? No. They would mail us the title and occasionally the $125 check. So it's a box on the form.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Why do mean the occasion?

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: So they don't pay you? Yeah, so it seems to be more at the judgment of the person that does them. We've called several times, a lot of tow companies don't get them and they'll say it, they send the check to somebody. It's always somebody else's getting it messed up along the line. So we implemented this with you guys, I believe three years ago I we were think a couple of you were And it's better, but not how it was written by no means. So there always seems to be a stipulation of why you didn't get it or what you did wrong or, you know, maybe it was, a police report number wasn't the right police report number or some sort of story. Your credit. Yeah, exactly. But prior to that time it was was $40 for an abandoned motor vehicle. We had it raised to $125 and then that was, I think, forty years ago or so. Obviously now, everything's gone up. Cost of trucks, labor, insurance has doubled, lots of doubled for fuel. $125 I think we're in contact with the Vermont State Police quite often and they're running into trouble with tellers wanting to, or getting towers to go get abandoned motor vehicles. You're gonna be stuck 90% of the time with these cars for $125 and most of the time they're calling at two or three in the morning. So people are up overtime, who wants to get out of bed, 30 below weather, and go fetch a car for maybe $100.5. I did get some notes here that you guys had talked to somebody from DMV on this and it looked like there was some talk about with bigger vehicles like RVs. RVs are very hard to dispose of just because mostly made of wood. They have septic tanks in them so that becomes a whole another process, with the tank empty, has to be pumped out. Nobody's doing that properly, but no problems. So it's creating a problem with getting, I think on state police's aspect of it, of getting people to take care of these vehicles and cleaning up the roads. Yeah.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: If you don't mind, I'll put faces on that a little bit. I reached out to Casella. They will take the trailers, whole blind trailers, as long as all the propane, sewage, appliances, all of that stuff is out of them. And they do it on the rate of the C and J for the dredge, which is $201 a ton right now. Anything in a motorhome confrontation, they do not want nothing to do with it. Four of our local salvage yards will not touch them. We are running into in Franklin County. These things are being moved all around the parking lot and showing up in in the the Hannaford Supermarket parking lot, Price Chopper. And we told the city PD we would help them out to get a couple things moved, and we did. And later that night, they moved them right up into Enosburg and Deals Armory Park, which is a parking ride, and they parked them right next to where the EV car is parked. So it's a problem if they're moving around and the police are dealing with it a lot, but a $125 is nothing for that, and it's nothing for our car, so there's

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: a lot to be looked at there.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Are you saying the new RVs, these aren't abandoned. They're just people that are living in them, but parking them overnight where they're not supposed to be. When their

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: their heat source has burnt the rig, they're abandoned out or leaving it. We just moved, you know, and we just moved three out of Saint Albans three months ago. Nobody nobody came after them or nothing, but, you know, we're pushed in a corner. Well, if you don't wanna move them, then we're gonna take you off rotation. You know? Well That's a police station. Yeah. So, you know, you get pushed back there, and so yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And we dealt with this Yeah. Four years ago.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah. Then one of them we towed in. They found out where it got towed to, and little did we know that two nights later they were living in and on our property. So now we're in RV park.

[Speaker 0]: Absolutely. Well, it's diversified. Diversified. And

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: I believe there's only one person processing abandoned motor vehicles right now, or towers. So I know there was a medical leave this summer by that person, and it backed up the whole system where no one was getting titles. In the state of Vermont I believe it's three vehicles on your property that you now become classified by ANR as a junkyard. Not a junkyard, we're just waiting for the state to process pay for it.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: And as soon as you get a title, you send it to auction?

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: We can send it to auction, we can do whatever, yeah, we can scrap it, send it to auction. Depends on

[Josh Schenberger, Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT)]: the car.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah, depends on the car. Most of these cars, the paper plates were a huge issue for a while. I know right now that program's suspended From what I understand, when you could get a $6 plate, it means nobody wanted to tow any car because they all had the piece of paper on the back window and you knew nobody would come to that guy.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: I think well, go ahead, and then my My my question was answered,

[Speaker 0]: so I just wanna know when you were talking about they took the car somewhere else.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: I didn't know who they was.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: They was in what?

[Speaker 0]: In the St. Albans example?

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Well, people that were, the homeless, would get them moved to wherever. Like in the St. Albans parking lot where we had to move them out of, we moved them from there to two of the people said they had a property they could park them on. Well, that property was not correct because our vehicles are wrapped and our names all over them. Our phones started ringing. So I called the city PD and I said, you got a problem on your hands. I did your favor and I'm not stepping in. And so they went, logged them, then they ended up on the rail trail. And then now they're now they're back up at the armory and they get them around somehow. They

[Speaker 0]: So they have a key to them and then take them away? Is

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: that Yeah.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Whatever. Some of them are trailers. Some of them are they they got there. Then they get them. You know? So, yeah, meaning they is the people that were staying in them.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Thank you.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Thanks.

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So who who's the end loser in this? You you guys are loser.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah. Mean, no. We're called at all hours, and we're the only ones going out to get these vehicles and, I mean, towers all over the state. So

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: So if things go right for you and you tow a camper or trailer and you put it in the right spot where this person and track down, right, the owner or sometimes it's a town that you do. Say it's the owner and you put it where they told you and everything's good there. Who pays you then? The owner of that camper?

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: So the owner of the camper would pay if they came to claim it. And if they If they didn't. If they don't, we're stuck with them. We have to file for that. That toll money? Correct. The town if the town called you, do they cover the no. No. The only time currently that we can charge anybody or that we charge people is state police if it's towed back to the barracks for a criminal investigation because it goes it could be a state police barracks for years.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: If I assume you like the language because the police could say, we want you to tow this, you could say, did you pay us right away instead of us waiting thirty days to go through the bureaucratic mass.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah and I mean is that how is it going to be written as still the cap of the $125

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Yeah but separate issue so there's the cap which probably needs to be raised, but then there's a question, I assume you support just having to be able to bill, who is the person that asks you to move in instead of waiting for the event or for the owner to come and get it?

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah, mean, think that would be better as long as they know how to do the process. You know? What if it's a local town or

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: But you just said just you you owe us $125 We're not gonna come get it. DMV will will pay you with Right. If it means DNB's process. They'll it kinda puts the burden on the on the person that's asking you instead of the burden on the end.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah. I mean

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I mean, that's how I read it. Because what we heard is that there's some towers saying we're not gonna come get it.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah. It's happening a lot now. There's a lot of it. Yeah. Think almost all tow companies are now scraping the bottles of what year is it? It's a '96 cavalier. Yeah. Too busy. Nobody wants to work for free. Which

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: is kind of the problem we had before where there was only $40 here. I'm not going to do $40 except state troopers and anything on the shoulder, we'll take off the rotation. You want to

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: keep that relationship positive. Correct. And they don't want to be spent. They're already understaffed. Their dispatch does not want to be calling 15 co companies to find somebody to take it. They've got bigger things to be dealing with than cavalier on the side of the fence.

[Speaker 0]: So just regarding the landfill, does anyone take stuff to the landfill?

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: You have to almost, like on the camper side of things, you almost have to dissect

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Like the

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: strip it off. Yeah. School buses are the same way. They have a wooden floor of them.

[Speaker 0]: Does anyone take them there?

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: If you strip them and send them a

[Speaker 0]: Right. But do you all?

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: If I get one, I have to. I can't take and throw the tires beside the road and appliances out by Total Home Center. We gotta dispose them the right way. There's a lot of work

[Speaker 0]: in it. Yeah. It's

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: expensive. It's cheap.

[Speaker 0]: So does someone pay you to do that?

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: No. We pay the landfill to get rid of it.

[Speaker 0]: Right, so I'm just thinking there's a lot of, there's probably more abandoned vehicles in the system as well.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yes, for sure. They couldn't give us numbers when we heard before of how many there was, but there's gonna be a calculation where they

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: know where where they're at.

[Speaker 0]: I would hope so. And who would they? Who who do you think

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: would They and the police. Where He's got

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: his hand up, when they are done, we're gonna put him in the chair for Renee. Okay, cool.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: All right,

[Speaker 0]: thank you.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah. So I think that's where the price cap is kinda even, you know, a car is gonna be obviously cheaper to tow than motor home or a trailer or an RV or, you know, and there's a lot of variables with that.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Just the fees at Cassello on an average pull behind camper is $1,800 Completely. We just did one that was 2,300.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, so who, did the owner pay you to do that? No. That's what would think.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: No, we paid it to get rid of it.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Okay. We can't have a junkyard.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: The owner doesn't show up. Right.

[Speaker 0]: So so you'd spent $2,300 knowing that you weren't gonna get it back. Wow.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: It's either that or become a junkyard.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: It's either that or become a junkyard.

[Josh Schenberger, Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT)]: Well, you. Or I'll get a call and

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: be back. Yeah. Well,

[Speaker 0]: that's not fair.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Right. So

[Speaker 0]: And a lot of people wouldn't do that, which would result in environmental damage.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Has nothing to do with this, but I'm gonna bring up the situation. A load of chocolate loaded in Saint Albans, Vermont heading to Godiva Chocolate, went through Swan, went off the road and into the river. Load of chocolate worth $250,000 We recovered it out of the river. We did the hazmat cleanup. We owned a certified hazmat place. Got the trailer out, got it all out, brought in a long reach escalator to get the chocolate out of the river because the trailer blew open when it went in. Wow. Casella brought roll off dumpsters that evening. We did that whole job. The cost of Casella, the excavator, and getting the chocolate out, the cost of that was $53,000.

[Speaker 0]: Oh my gosh.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: So No insurance on the truck.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, gosh.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: No insurance on the load. My wife used to run transportation at Barry Calibault. They had to have proof of your DOT number and your insurance and everything being done. And I'm not down on nobody in the state of Vermont, but the DOT officer used my office for two days for dealing with this junk. Okay? Brought in, we brought in all this paperwork out of the truck. Laid it out and dried it. He had seven DOT inspections that he didn't pass, then he drove out of the places. He didn't have a CDL, it was a non branded CDL. He couldn't prove no insurance or nothing. And DOT let him go with no fines and witnessed it in my office. And I have it on our camera system.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Talking about you're talking AOT and Vermont DOT? Vermont DOT.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Okay. And that person disappeared. He had no money on him or nothing. We had an insurance company call us that night saying that it was fully insured and everything else. Three days later that phone number wasn't working no I put him in the Hampton Inn, he was soaking wet and all the first night, and paid that bill and said, I'll just They dealt with him the next day. I said, I'll put you in a motel for tonight, sir, and then my, we'll get you down there. So that night we were shorthanded. We had a taxi pick him up. Day he didn't come in. DOT was there. No guy. Called the taxi guy. Did you take this guy? No. He had no idea, nothing, couldn't get a plane, so I took him to Greyhound at the Burlington Airport. Never to be seen again. Wow. We processed the truck. We crossed it, nobody responded on the vehicle or nothing. We got it abandoned on the truck, the trailer was junk, and we went through hoops to get that abandoned title, which should have been clear and simple, but it took a while to do it. And, you know, so without our manpower, our wreckers, our equipment, eight and a half hours doing this deal, you know, we have over $53,000 in. Wow. So.

[Speaker 0]: That's that's a story.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: That's something write that check, I sleep with her at night. That's my wife. And she wasn't too happy about writing out $53,000

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: checks to get nothing back.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. And that's not fair.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: No.

[Speaker 0]: It's not a good system.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: So it Alright.

[Speaker 0]: Well, we can talk about that, right? Yep. And

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: so are what are you supposed to be different fees for different types of vehicles as well as raising the 125?

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah. I think, yes.

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: Would you see would you see a scenario where you had two categories of caps? One for pleasure cars, one for campers. Or big trucks. Big trucks.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Yeah, think that would be, yeah. I think where it comes in the, where the costs really start going up is with the hazmat situation. Yes. Know, fuel spills and stuff like that is where the price is fluctuating.

[Speaker 0]: That's where insurance is necessary. That may real matter.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: That may ensure that insurance. Yeah. But when you hold the DOT number, it's a federal law. You must hold 750,000 of general liability. Push. Yeah. Now I'm on the TRA in Washington DC coming up here in February, and that FMCSA is there, it's a Total Recovery Association of America. And they sat down at the fireside committee meeting, and they said, well, we're gonna raise that 750,000 to 2,000,000. Is that gonna work for you? And I stepped on and I said, what goods are gonna do? 750,000 they're not paying for. You raise it to 2,000,000, they're still not gonna pay for that. Mhmm. Maybe if the federal motor carriers paid for their insurance, we'd have some secure insurance. But we know that ain't happening. So it's it's just a it's a tough situation. But where a lot of problems started is when you guys came out with that $6 tag. That paper plate you print out.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what you're saying.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: My little story on that is as they go to Walmart, buy a $6 printer and a $6 tag, and they're on the road, and then things are faded out. Now they've ended them, but I'm hearing rumors that as soon as they get the computers figured out, they're gonna bring that back, and I don't think that should be done.

[Speaker 0]: We'll talk

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: about that.

[Speaker 0]: We didn't do that.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: I can't say you did.

[Speaker 0]: No. No. No. What else?

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: We approved it. You approved it.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: I don't

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: think he meant it. No. I didn't.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: No. But this is

[Speaker 0]: this is really helpful to hear

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: what's happening.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: I hope somebody that's sitting on the outside is taking notes.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Well, we have a report.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Bill, I'm with him at the Vermont truck and bus. We see each other speak on better terms now, and I think they're I think they're seeing a better picture.

[Speaker 0]: Well,

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: it's been very enlightening, and we thank you very much for being here. I think at this point, I am gonna ask you to stay in the room, and if you could take about ten minutes, and, this is not gonna be the last time we hear about this. So if you guys

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Perfect. Sure. Thanks. Great.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: I don't want We don't apologize. Somebody's been stealing our chairs. We

[Speaker 0]: don't have chairs. We're waiting.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Andy Collar, commissioner of DMV for the record again. Happy to jump into talking about some of the concerns here in section 18 and your calls.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, I I don't think we're gonna get to

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: No. Not all.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: There's really two levels to this. One is the fine, and Yep. Or one is the 125 and how we might switch around that. So there's a second piece to this too.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yep. So campers, I I would I would ask the committee to call him Chris Harrison in the agency. He him and his team have been dealing with the campers situation and paying for those at the agency. They have their own hazmat team as he mentioned that there's a hazmat element to this, I think he would paint a good picture about what is happening on the ground, at least from the state side, and then that might break off the second piece on how do we handle these large campers, RVs that are being abandoned. He's got a lot of great information on what the agency's been doing, and that's the only first I think would be prudent before we jump into that. The the '25, we have a $50,000 budget for it. We're happy to discuss we estimate about 400 vehicles a year for the abandoned side. We're happy to discuss revisiting that and and adjusting that as needed. We identified, don't wanna say it in bad ways for the employee, there was a single point of failure. We had one employee that was handling these over the summer. We now have additional people trained up on these abandoned vehicles, so that part, we hope, is correctly going forward. But, yes, we are we are open to talking about adjusting, you know, 1.5 has sounded a lot. They made a great point. It's not gonna come out at three at the end. Could

[Patrick "Pat" Brennan (Member)]: I just suggest when you do that, though, you talk to these bring these guys in and make sure that you're on a safe page as far as what it should be?

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yep. I think we'd like to hear back from if you the department meeting with them before me. Yeah. And my sense is we're not gonna get this all corrected. If we could take a step to get it moved to a better place, but, yeah, we'd like to hear that you work for them to do Absolutely. Go ahead.

[Speaker 0]: Are you open to the tiered conversation? I know you lost him wait to speak to Chris, but are you open to I'm that at not sure if

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: it should be tiered or if has to be just a separate section. I mean, it is a big, lift for those large vehicles. I think just recently, agency paid, I think, $6,000 to remove one. I'm not sure if maybe it fits in here in the Cure System or maybe that should be a separate conversation. I don't know the radioactive tile ones quite yet. So I don't know on that one.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: When you say the agency, mean transportation? Yes, they have have teams. I

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: guess, so your idea of this, your state police would would ask them to tell it. State police would pay the 125 and then I for you for the 125. Yeah. Yeah. Have you thought at all at all which about why you're paying that $125? Like,

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: why is that being being thought?

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Like, is that are we are we appropriating the cost and the risk, especially one at $6,000? Correct. Should that be ordered by some other party's big government?

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: And I think that's a separate conversation on the large ones. I think the this history for the abandoned vehicles is because it's tied to the abandoned vehicle tag.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: This change, they contemplate maybe that shift just goes to municipalities, goes to agencies, goes to and they just bear bear the cost of of the toe. We were trying to find a quick solution for an immediate problem and didn't get too far down that.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Right. Because and maybe they don't have to bill you. Maybe for them, it's too much worse. To bill you for them to bill to pay it and not worry about it. But especially if it's a lot of money, I wonder if we want to be responsible for that even though you have a title. So you're gonna be involved.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Correct. And as far as I'm no. The the large campers right now happening, unless it's an abandoned title, the towing, at least for AOT, is happening on the AOT dime.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: It's not

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: coming through DMV. We're there to assist if they need law enforcement presence or something, just a tagged vehicle, but, again, I I think it's two separate conversations. And that's for that those large motor homes are better.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Right. And we want them to be just kinda like tires and other stuff that we we it's ANR. It's actually something that we would have a funded ANR for.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yeah. And they are running into that with with just vehicles as well, with hazmat, with needles and other items in vehicle and parking rights. Again, I'm only speaking for AMT on this one. There's an associated cost that the agency is bearing to make it safe enough just even remove.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Right.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Do you

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: have a question? Can I ask a question?

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Really. Okay. We're gonna take one more question here.

[Speaker 0]: This is a little bit off the track, you were gonna say something.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, here's what I want is we've got some time to do this DMV though. It's not really, If you could come back, you meet with them, and you come back and having solved some of these in this discussion, and you had a report back to us a week from today, that would be helpful. We can do that.

[Bob Malmony, President, Vermont Tow Association]: Well Go ahead, you can finish it.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: I mister Perchlik, we we should have in, and we'll probably have him in sometime next week K. To do that, and you need to give that to but what I would rather instead of taking, you know, hands from all over that you guys need to come back to us with something Yep. That that works better with their needs. And and we're probably not gonna be perfect in this because the world in this world is not perfect, and we need to take some steps to make this better. Absolutely.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Not really just showing, but the issue that around commercial vehicle enforcement, I don't know if you don't have to do it now. I don't wanna but I would be interested to hear from Wade or the department about enforcement. Are are there people getting four warnings in a row? Then let's go. We can Maybe that specific case kind of what happened there.

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: Yep. Yes. Come and talk about that specific one and then just what we what they see in a normal transaction that would be a crash or something.

[Andrew Perchlik (Member)]: Discuss that.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: And who would be the best person to take?

[Andrew Collier, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles]: I would say Captain Matt Nestle from our commercial.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Yeah. I we should do that and we'll spend a little bit of time talking about the enforcement issue. Just

[Speaker 0]: about the language itself. When discussing the language, it's basically saying that the agent, the other state agency needs to provide you proof that they paid. That just seems so specific. That seems like a procedure that would be in an internal manual, not as a legislative direction. But if you do need legislative direction on that, I would just make it more broad because there's other situations that are similar to that. I mean it's basically accountability from one department to another one. So if we're gonna have a statement like that, let's just make it more useful too. Okay.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: So next Friday, we're gonna put you on the schedule to come back here, and if you haven't got a solution, we aren't on that tight a time frame, but we're gonna look for you to come back and at least give us an update, and we are looking for overall language that Yeah. You can do that. Yeah. And I think we're five minutes from the floor. So I think, Megan, if you could take us

[Speaker 0]: to 11:30. What? Floor is at 11:30.

[Herb Barton, Vice President, Vermont Tow Association]: Eleventh or

[Speaker 0]: That's okay. We can see on At two. I thought the work was at eleven today.

[Josh Schenberger, Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT)]: It could be at eleven.

[Speaker 0]: But I can still take you off.

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: Well, you take us off and and I think

[Speaker 0]: I I

[Richard Westman (Chair)]: was thinking it was at eleven.