# Vehicle Impound Appeal: When Home is What's Being Towed ## Meeting Overview On a quiet Wednesday afternoon in October, Hearing Examiner Sharon Rice convened a virtual hearing that would determine whether Minda Berwick could recover the fees she paid to retrieve her home from an impound lot. The case, number 24-PW-03178, centered on a motorhome that served as both vehicle and residence for Berwick, a disabled woman who had been living in the converted school bus for three years along West Bakerview Road. The hearing, conducted entirely over Zoom, brought together city parking enforcement officials, a towing company owner, and two residents whose lives had been upended by what they viewed as an overly aggressive enforcement action. What emerged was a story that highlighted the complex intersection of municipal code enforcement, housing insecurity, and the human cost of bureaucratic processes. Present for the October 16th hearing were Stephanie Mays, the parking technician who initiated the impound; Chris Heston, owner of Heston Hauling; Assistant City Attorney Matt Stamps; Parking Supervisor Raul Murillo; and the appellants, Minda Berwick and Joshua Shannon. The case would turn on questions of timing, communication breakdowns, and whether proper procedures were followed when the city ordered Berwick's home to be towed. ## The Pattern of Enforcement The story began in early September when the city received complaints about vehicles parked along West Bakerview Road, outside the normal parking management zone. Stephanie Mays, a parking technician with the City of Bellingham, explained the city's response: "Once we receive those complaints, because they are outside our normal parking management zone, we coordinate with our solid waste team and Bellingham police officers to visit and provide a 72-hour notice to move." On September 3rd, Mays and other city officials arrived at the site where Berwick's converted school bus was parked in a grass strip across from 1650 West Bakerview Road. What made this visit different from typical enforcement actions was that Berwick and Shannon were present when the officials arrived. "Since Miss Berwick and I'm assuming husband, that's what I've been told, were present, we did not stick the sticker to the vehicle as they requested. We handed it to them," Mays testified. This personal interaction revealed something significant about the enforcement pattern in this area. As Mays would later acknowledge, "This isn't the fi…