Suspected abandoned cars removed from city garage after WSMV 4 investigation
If the suspected abandoned cars we counted were paying the monthly rate due, it’d collectively be more than $5,000.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - More parking is opening up downtown after WSMV 4 Investigates uncovered dozens of suspected abandoned vehicles taking up spaces in a city parking garage. Some of those cars have now been removed, but there is still a question of what, if any, penalties the car owners are facing.
We showed you 42 cars on Friday that were covered in dust with flat tires. Some had no plates. Others had expired plates. They were taking up some of the most affordable parking spots downtown at the Public Square Garage for at least a month.
“They got to go,” Mark Oakley, who recently parked in the garage, said.
After we started asking questions, notices were placed on the windows of the cars late last week ordering them to be removed immediately. On Monday, we went back. We saw one man who said he was trying to get a suspected abandoned car started for a “friend of a friend”. One worker told us he was taking inventory of the cars in question. We counted ourselves and found at least six of them have been removed.
“Who are these people,” Oakley asked. “That is the question.”
One of the cars that is no longer there was a truck with no tags. The bed of the truck was filled with campaign signs for Paul Walwyn, a local attorney who ran for judge two years ago. Walwyn told us on the phone Monday that the truck belongs to someone who worked for his campaign but could not say how long it has been there.
That’s one of of the questions we have for the Nashville Downtown Partnership, who manages the garage: How do they know how long the cars have been sitting there? What will people owe the city once they remove the cars?
“Or are they just there to park for free,” Oakley asked. “Is that what the thing is?”
We emailed, called, and went to their offices and are still waiting on those answers.
“I don’t know what the dilemma is,” Oakley said. “I don’t know what is happening.”
A garage worker told us Monday that the cost for a lost ticket is just $20. If the suspected abandoned cars we counted were paying the monthly rate due, it’d collectively be more than $5,000.
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