T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY The Marshalltown Police Department currently has about 90 found bicycles in storage at the impound building near the entrance to the Compost Facility on the northeast side of town. During Monday night’s meeting, Chief Mike Tupper’s suggestion to move away from auctioning them off and instead taking the bikes to a salvage yard received informal approval from the council, and it will come back as an official resolution at a future meeting. As he introduced the first discussion item of Monday night’s meeting, Marshalltown Police Chief Mike Tupper joked that there were many important topics on the agenda, but the subject he was about to cover wasn’t one of them.
“Bear with me,” he said. “Found bicycles have become a bane of our existence at the police department. It’s odd to me. It’s been odd to me for many years now, but apparently bicycles have become disposable property because we don’t take many stolen bike reports, but we sure take in a lot of found bicycles.”
Judging by the shape some of them are in, he added, he isn’t surprised that no one is claiming them. Currently, there are about 90 bikes sitting in storage at an impound building near the Compost Facility, and Tupper said the MPD has historically used public auctions to get rid of them.
Because of the lack of revenue they generate and the cost to store the bikes and put the auctions on, the chief suggested adopting a new policy that will […]
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