Naperville tightens secruity around impound lot

Naperville police said security at its auxiliary vehicle impound site along Plainfield-Naperville Road will be increased in the wake of a two-week vandalism spree that damaged nearly 80 cars.

"We're looking at our security there, and will make whatever adjustments are appropriate," said Cmdr. Ray Adkins. "We relied on our security, and that was a mistake. That security was compromised."

Some city councilmen were bothered how long the vandalism went unchecked.

"I assumed we check stuff there on a regular basis," said Councilman Doug Krause. "If you're storing something some-place, it behooves somebody on a periodic basis, maybe not daily, but often to drive by and check since there's no other secu-rity in place."

Adkins said he was the last person through the department's overflow lot at 3604 Plainfield-Naperville Road. He would not say how often vehicles were checked on the lot, but noted that many vehicles there had been in police custody for several months, and in some cases years.

Authorities discovered the vandalism Saturday when they were alerted to a car fire in the lot early in the evening. Investi-gators found damage to nearly all of the 80 vehicles on the lot. Two were set ablaze, and another was damaged in the fires.

Tuesday, police arrested five teenagers in connection with the vandalism. They were spotted back at the impound lot. The investigation is ongoing, and police officials said more arrests are likely.

City Attorney Margo Ely said the city would seek restitution from the youngsters' parents to cover the damages that were estimated at more than $50,000.

Those damages would be out of the parents' pockets, because insurance won't cover the teenagers' misdeeds.

"If it was a crime then something damaged during the course of a crime is not covered," said American Family Insurance Naperville agent Don Ellis. "I haven't heard of any such thing as bad-kid-insurance, but I could probably sell a lot of it."

Meanwhile, the city may be on the hook for any repair costs to vehicles that are delivered back to the owners.

"The criminal investigation is going to give the city all it needs to cover its interests," she said. "Our end goal is to make sure fair compensation is collected."

The vehicles were being stored in a makeshift lot near the city's water treatment facility because police officials ran out of storage space elsewhere. The city seizes more cars these days because of tougher DUI laws.

The problem with determining compensation is that most of the damaged vehicles were seized during DUI arrests, Adkins said. Some of the cars have been impounded since 2003.

"They rarely go back to the drivers," he said.

And while the owners may no longer have any stake in the vehicles, the city can sell them at an auction.

One of the vehicles set on fire was a 1987 Chevrolet Astro minivan. According to the Kelley Blue Book web site that monitors used car prices, in excellent condition, the minivan was worth $1,700. Adkins said the 20-year-old vehicle was not in excellent condition.

Councilman James Boyajian said he expects vandalism problems will decrease significantly when a new impound lot opens in October 2008 next to the city's new public works facility.

"I'm not worried about this happening in the future," he said. "I don't expect we'll have many cases with the security that will be there."

City officials said most of the $300,000 price tag of the new impound lot is in the security features.

"This is a fully secured, 220-car impound storage facility for the police department," said public works director Dave Van Vooren. "It will be fenced, well-lit, key-card accessed, we'll have security cameras trained at it and since it's in the middle of an industrial park that sees activity at all times of the day, it won't be an inviting target for vandals."