On Feb. 23, the Des Moines City Council voted 5-2 to extend its contract with the controversial towing outfit Crow Tow, which has had the city’s towing contract since 2019. This reignited the public debate on local and state towing laws, which are among the loosest in the nation.
Crow Tow has been accused of predatory behavior and unscrupulous business practices over the two decades it has been in business. Owner Randy Crow and company representatives deny those accusations.
As reported by Little Village in 2022, the Polk County Board of Supervisors rescinded its contract offer with Crow Tow in 2021 because of public backlash. Four years later, the Board voted 3-2 to award Crow Tow a contract lasting from July 1, 2025 to June 2028. Supervisors Angela Connolly and Tom Hockensmith voted against the contract, with Hockensmith noting his own well-publicized encounter with the company.
The Crow Tow saga has been chronicled by Lee Rood, “Reader’s Watchdog” columnist for the Des Moines Register, in a series of articles investigating the widespread allegations against the company and its business practices. In 2024, Rood documented political contributions made by Dawn Thornton, who runs Crow Tow with her husband Randy Crow, to Des Moines political leaders the previous year. Thornton “gave $6,500 to City Council member Linda Westergaard, $5,000 to now-Mayor Connie Boesen, and $2,500 and $1,000 respectively to council members Chris Coleman and Joe Gatto, state records show,” Rood reported.
The recipients of Thornton’s contributions told the Register campaign contributions do not influence them.
The new three-year police towing, storage and auctioneering contract Des Moines awarded Crow Tow began on March 1 and runs through Feb. 28, 2029. City Manager Scott Sanders recommended Crow Tow’s bid over one from Central Iowa Towing and Recovery.
According to Mayor Boesen, the new contract makes several changes to the towing processes to improve the service for Des Moines and its residents. The “most impactful changes” highlighted by the mayor’s office include:
- Requiring the towing contractor to accept credit card payments.
- Giving police the discretion to allow a vehicle owner to take their vehicle if they arrive on scene before the tow truck leaves, at no charge to the owner.
- Clarifying what the city owes the contractor in the event of an interrupted tow.
- Requiring the contractor to develop and maintain procedures to ensure that vehicle owners, or their authorized representative(s), are able to retrieve personal property from impounded vehicles promptly, efficiently and at no cost.
However, some are skeptical these changes go far enough to protect Des Moines drivers and those who depend on them.
City Councilmember Josh Mandelbaum, who cast one of the two votes against Crow Tow, told Little Village, “I voted against the contract because we should have done more to protect consumers.”
The Ward 3 councilmember said he has regularly received complaints about the city’s towing practices since he was first elected in 2018. Mandelbaum points to the weak consumer protections in Iowa law as a big part of the problem.
“The way that this lack of consumer protection plays out has been well documented in Lee Rood’s excellent reporting on this topic,” Mandelbaum said. “Residents experience aggressive towing tactics and high storage costs. Cars are sold at auction after short notification periods, and in some cases, the towing company keeps a windfall from those sales. And Crow Tow has become a high-volume call location for the Des Moines Police Department. It does not have to be this way.”
“Towing is a necessary service that the city contracts for, but our contract should be a model of good towing practices,” Mandelbaum said. “We should have had a council work session to discuss our towing contract and how to incorporate consumer protections before we issued an RFP, but we didn’t.”
“The contract may be in place, but there are still things that the Council can do to address predatory towing practices. We should pass an ordinance to provide consumer protections in private towing, and I proposed a council work session so that we could take action along those lines. I would welcome any of my colleagues to join me in advocating for better consumer protections in towing.”
Although the city contract is important, most of Crow Tow’s business involves patrolling private lots. Its signs appear at various businesses from downtown to the suburbs, from Beaverdale to Ingersoll.
The Greater Iowa Apartment Association, a nonprofit with a membership of over 490 companies managing over 57,000 apartment homes, describes Crow Tow on its website as “the platinum towing partner” of the association.
“Crow Tow is your premier choice for towing in the Des Moines Metro Area,” the GIAA website reads, “with an extensive background in providing unique solutions tailored to private properties and businesses.”
For many Iowans, access to a vehicle can mean the difference between employment and unemployment. Rising costs are making life increasingly unaffordable for millions of Americans. Vehicle prices are nearing an all-time high, as is the cost of maintaining and fueling them.
Madison Grady, director of government affairs for the Iowa Credit Union League (ICUL), told Little Village that current towing laws leave consumers and lienholders with limited protections such as a long notice timeline, short reclaim windows and few guardrails around fees and surplus proceeds.
“We are increasingly hearing from credit union members about situations where fees escalate quickly, and access to personal property is restricted,” Grady said. “While many towing operators act responsibly, the lack of clear standards can allow bad actors to take advantage of consumers during already stressful circumstances. Greater clarity in the law would benefit everyone.”
According to Grady, ICUL supports reform proposals designed to ensure “fair towing practices without undermining legitimate business operations,” including shorter timelines for notifying owners and lienholders, longer windows to reclaim vehicles, clear and itemized fee disclosures, limits on when storage fees begin and fair handling of auction proceeds.
“That imbalance can put working families at a disadvantage, particularly when a vehicle is essential to getting to work or caring for family,” he explained. “For too many Iowans, a tow can quickly turn into a confusing and expensive situation. Updates that improve transparency, strengthen notice requirements, and ensure fair treatment of vehicle owners and lienholders are common-sense steps that help prevent unnecessary financial harm.”
Bills to change state laws about towing were introduced in both the Iowa House and Senate during this year’s legislative session. A compromise bill was passed that reduces the number of days towing companies can wait before sending a notice to a car owner or lien holder that they have impounded the vehicle from 20 days to 10 days. HF 2617 also increased the number of days owners have to pay impound and storage fees on a towed to 20 days. Currently, owners have 10 days after being notified to pay those fees, or the towing company can send the vehicle to an auction.
HF 2617 also prohibits companies from requiring cash-only payments, and requires them to publicly post their fees and provide itemized receipts. Under the bill, owners must be given an opportunity to retrieve their possessions from an impounded vehicle.
At the time of this story’s online publication, HF 2617 is still on the governor’s desk, awaiting her either her signature or a veto.
A version of this article was originally published in Little Village’s May 2026 issue.
