West Valley City is considering scrapping its rotating list of towing companies in favor of one primary provider for police tow requests, a shift that has a family-owned towing company worried about its future after nearly 80 years of service. City leaders say West Valley City police make as many as 5,000 towing requests a year, and consolidating those calls under a single company could speed up how quickly crash scenes get cleared and traffic starts moving again.
The proposal, first reported by FOX 13 News Utah, comes as the city seeks a vendor capable of handling most non-preference police calls, with police requesting towing services 10 to 15 times a night after arrests, DUIs and crashes, according to city leaders. Kendal Brown, whose family runs Cal Brown Towing, said the change would be unfair to companies that have served West Valley City for 20 years or more. Cal Brown Towing was founded in 1948, and Brown said the business is his family's and has been around for generations.
A Family Business Facing an Uncertain Bottom Line
Brown raised concerns that losing steady rotation dispatches would make it difficult to maintain the same income for his family. The company has held active federal operating authority as a property carrier based in West Valley City since September 1997, according to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration records logged on SAFER Web. The proposed contract, formally solicited under Request for Proposals WVC PD 26-01 through Utah's Bonfire Hub procurement portal, would last one year, with the city able to end the agreement if the chosen provider's services do not meet expectations.
City officials argue that funneling requests to one primary provider could allow faster response times and help keep traffic moving through busy intersections and crash sites. Even so, the contract as drafted is legally non-exclusive, meaning the city retains discretion to keep multiple towing vendors on its books rather than committing to a single company outright, per procurement documents reviewed by Cleat.ai. That flexibility hasn't eased Brown's worries, since his business still depends heavily on the volume of rotation calls it currently receives.
State Law Already Caps What Tow Companies Can Charge
Much of the public concern has centered on whether a single dominant provider could drive up costs for drivers whose vehicles get impounded. But non-consent police towing rates are capped statewide regardless of which company handles a call, with the Utah Department of Transportation setting light-duty non-consent towing charges at $211 per hour and private drop fees at $105.50 under Utah Code 72-9-603 and Administrative Rule R909-19. State law also requires all towing carriers and impound yards to post their fee schedules clearly and accept cash, debit, and credit cards for non-consent tows, a protection outlined in Utah Code 72-9-601. UDOT further mandates distribution of the Utah Consumer Bill of Rights Regarding Towing, which guarantees vehicle owners the right to retrieve personal belongings from an impounded car.
Residents discussing the proposal in local Facebook groups have also floated the idea that the new contract could include $0 towing charges for city-owned vehicles, a potential cost-saving detail that has fed public debate over whether municipal savings are driving the push toward a single provider. The scrutiny arrives against a backdrop of past towing controversy in West Valley City: in August 2024, police charged the owner of Bailout Towing with two dozen felony counts over alleged predatory towing practices, according to KSL TV. That history has kept local towing compliance under close watch.
How Nearby Cities Handle Police Tow Contracts
West Valley City isn't the only Salt Lake County city rethinking its towing setup. Sandy City solicited 24-hour police rotation towing services in January 2026 for a 12-month contract, requiring dispatched operators to arrive on scene within 20 minutes, according to HigherGov contract records. The Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake, which serves surrounding county communities, takes yet another approach, managing police towing through an annual open rotation application process that requires UDOT certifications rather than locking in a single exclusive vendor, per the department's own towing information page.
Those contrasting models give West Valley City council members several regional templates to weigh as they head toward a public hearing on the proposal scheduled for Sept. 8. For Kendal Brown and Cal Brown Towing, the outcome of that hearing could determine whether a business that has operated in the community since 1948 keeps the steady stream of police calls it has relied on for generations.
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