MILL CREEK — Ever lose a bicycle? Or have a stereo stolen? If you have, it may have ended up in an auction by the local police department to empty out the property room.
That auction, a labor intensive operation that rarely netted departments much money, is becoming a distant memory, overtaken by the Internet. Specifically by a California based company, propertyroom.com.
Founded two years ago by a group headed by former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, propertyroom.com has replaced the dreary paperwork and auctions with a system that frees up police resources while raising the profits from surplus items by taking the sales nationwide via the website, www.propertyroom.com.
The only company providing these services to law enforcement, propertyroom.com has become a juggernaut. In less than two years, 300 police departments have signed up with more coming on-line everyday, keeping the website well stocked with jewelry, computers, bicycles and tools.
A leading proponent of the program is the city of Mill Creek, particularly police Chief Bob Crandall and property specialist Chris Risen.
“This program saves us effort and actually makes money for us,” Crandall said. “They come and pick the stuff up, put it on-line and send us a check.”
Risen, who has seen her duties increase to doing things like testing of illegal drugs, not only appreciates relief from the administrative headaches of an auction, but also the customer service that propertyroom.com provides that the city cannot.
“I hate to see people spend money on something that may not even work,” she said. “Propertyroom.com takes items, tests them, gets things like jewelry appraised and gets a good price for them.”
Recently, the city confiscated a Rolex watch in a drug operation. The watch, appraised at $3,200, sold on propertyroom.com for $1,900. The company takes a 25 percent commission on items over $1,000, netting the city $1,388.
“The commission may seem steep, but they get more for each item than we ever would,” Risen said. “We do much better than we ever could in an auction.”
Risen remembers a time when the city held an auction and no one came, giving her even more reason to be grateful for the change to propertyroom.com this past summer.
“I was pregnant and had to ride each bike, all 40, to our current City Hall,” she said. “The chief and our civil service person showed up. She bought a bike and we were left with 39 bikes.”
In Snohomish County, Lynnwood, Lake Stevens, Marysville, Monroe and Mill Creek all participate. Edmonds is considering making use of the on-line auction service. The King County Sheriff, who provides contract services to the city of Shoreline is a client, as is the Seattle Police Department.
Three area cities are not part of the network; Brier, Lake Forest Park and Mountlake Terrace. For the first two, it is a matter of size.
“We haven’t had an auction since 1998,” said Brier support services specialist Mickey Halvorsen. “We have a number of bikes in the back of the station, but we are a small town, so there isn’t much to sell.”
In Lake Forest Park, the bicycles aren’t an issue at all. Dave Hammond manages the property room.
“We contribute the bikes to charitable groups who fix them up and give them to kids who need one,” Hammond said.
Mountlake Terrace also has gone nearly five years without an auction, but Sgt. Gary McCaul thinks that the propertyroom.com concept is a good one. So good, in fact, he is now mulling the idea.
“I will have to look into this,” he said. “That seems like something that would work for us. We just don’t have the time and manpower to do auctions anymore.”
Currently, propertyroom.com picks up all items and takes them to a California center to be prepped for sale. With expansion, the company is opening centers in Seattle and Florida this year with plans for a dozen more across the country.
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