By Jon Chown
SANTA CRUZ — The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors gave an initial approval to changes to the county’s rules for abandoned, wrecked, and oversized vehicles, aiming to tackle a long-standing public safety and nuisance issue.
The new ordinance, which updates Chapter 9.57 of the county code, would give the sheriff’s office greater authority to remove vehicles abandoned or left on public streets and other county property. The board voted 4-1 to return the ordinance for another reading and initial-approval vote with minor changes.
If the ordinance meets final approval, most vehicles will receive a 10-day warning before being towed. In cases where a vehicle poses an immediate risk to public safety, that warning can be waived, allowing law enforcement to act quickly. Once towed, vehicles could be dismantled immediately, a change designed to remove disincentives for towing companies.
Currently, state and local regulations require vehicles to be stored for a set period, a practice that often makes towing expensive and risky, resulting in many abandoned cars remaining in place for weeks or even months. Sheriff’s deputies have said the ordinance will allow for faster and more effective enforcement.
The new ordinance was sponsored by Supervisors Manu Koenig (District 1) and Felipe Hernandez (District 4). Koenig made the presentation of the changes to the board and public.
“The problem that this ordinance update seeks to address is that county code today doesn’t have any teeth,” he said.
Koenig said he got involved in the issue when residents complained about an abandoned RV on Harden Way that had been there for more than a year. It was sprayed with graffiti and missing tires. When Koenig asked the sheriff’s office why nothing was being done, he was told the RV had been ticketed more than 30 times, but no tow company would move it because storing the RV is expensive and the company would never recoup the costs. People also break into tow yards to retrieve items from vehicles, making tow companies reluctant to handle them.
“This is for abandoned, wrecked, inoperable vehicles,” said Hernandez, who noted that vehicles were being left on agricultural land in south county.
Abandoned and oversized vehicles have been a persistent problem across Santa Cruz County, creating blocked rights-of-way, obstructing emergency access, generating public health concerns, and frustrating local businesses, according to the county’s staff report.
Members of the public were outraged by the proposal and voiced their dissent.
“This is an outrageous proposal. I’m reminded of Nazi Germany,” said Marilyn Garrett.
“You’re stealing people’s last home,” said Keith McHenry, who said he knew of many people, even elderly women, who had their homes taken away with their prescription medicines inside.
“It ruins a person’s ability to get back off the streets because you’ve destroyed their only way of living. … This is brutality. It should stop.”
County officials stressed that enforcement would be carried out with care for residents who may be living in vehicles. The county’s Encampment Response Guidelines will guide interactions, emphasizing outreach and engagement before any law enforcement action. Residents would be offered information on services, and enforcement efforts would seek to avoid criminalizing individuals based solely on their housing status.
Supervisors Justin Cummings and Kimberly De Serpa appeared to have the most concerns with the proposed changes. De Serpa described her personal experience as a clinical social worker in health care. She had a patient who’d had a stroke and his car had been towed while he was hospitalized. She found the car in a Moss Landing junkyard and it would cost $1,200 to get the car back. She wound up buying another car at the junkyard for her patient to live in.
“It was the one place he had he could be safe,” she said. “It was pretty upsetting.”
Some modifications were made to the proposal, such as requiring notices to be bilingual and attached to vehicles. These changes required the ordinance to return to the board for another first reading. It requires two readings to pass.
Cummings was the lone vote against bringing the proposal back, though he made a similar motion that failed to get a second.