By JOHN KOZIOL

Staff Writer

LACONIA — After setting up the process, the state police have ceded responsibility to the city for the towing and impounding of vehicles during Bike Week.

Mayor Mark Fraser on Monday informed the City Council of the state police’s decision, but noted that the agency did not give an explanation for it.

For the past five years the state police has arranged to have towing companies work during the latter part of Bike Week and has also overseen the operation of an impound lot at St. Helena’s Church on Route 11B.

The lot is set up by the Laconia Public Works Department and staffed by a city employee who collects the towing fee. The revenues are split between the city and the towing company.

State Police Capt. Ray Burke helped create the current Bike Week towing procedures and recently said they were created out of necessity.

Before the impound lot, Bike Week patrons parked at St. Helena’s and then walked down Route 11B to The Weirs, raising state police’s concern about their safety on the busy road.

Additionally, state police needed wreckers to be stationed throughout The Weirs and for those wreckers to be able to drop off the vehicles they had towed to a site in The Weirs, because, as Burke said, "on a normal day you can travel from Meredith to The Weirs in eight minutes, but during Bike Week, Route 104 to the Weirs bridge can be a three-hour ride."

That first year and every year since then, Burke contacted towing companies to come work Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon of Bike Week. A Laconia-based towing company participated in that first year, but none has since then, said Burke, who added that the five companies who worked Bike Week 2003 were all from out of the area.

Representatives of several local towing companies complained to the municipal Motorcycle Week Advisory Committee this year that the process of determining which companies got to work the impound lot was unfair and asked the committee, which is studying ways of improving Bike Week, to intervene.

Burke said no qualified company has been excluded, adding that up until 2003, state police required that the towers who work Bike Week be members of the New Hampshire Towing Association, but that condition has been dropped.

Now, however, it looks like the City of Laconia, and the Police Department specifically will be responsible for determining which companies get to come tow vehicles during Bike Week.

Police Chief Tom Oetinger has said that the Bike Week towing contracts should go out to bid through the city’s Purchasing Office.