By Mark LaFlamme,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A pair of literacy volunteers who spent two hours teaching English to a foreign woman Tuesday got a lesson of their own: frustration.

The two instructors had their cars towed during their instruction at River Valley Apartments.

By the end of the ordeal, each paid $130 to get the cars back from a compound, and the future of public service at the apartment complex off Strawberry Avenue was in jeopardy.

Gloria Moreau said she and another worker from Literacy Volunteers had gone there to teach English to a woman who is trying to become a United States citizen.

Their mistake: parking in spots designated for vehicle owners with parking permits.

“It was a nightmare,” Moreau said. “It’s like we’re being punished for providing help.”

Moreau and her colleague join a long list of people who have complained about parking issues at the apartment complex formerly known as Tall Pines. In recent months and years, several people have called police or news agencies to complain that their vehicles were towed without warning. Visitors and residents alike have complained.

“We get our share of calls regarding confrontations between the tow truck operators and vehicle owners who are upset,” said Lewiston police Lt. Tom Avery.

Many of those calls come from River Valley. But because it is private property, police don’t get involved in the disputes unless they escalate to the point of possible criminal action.

For Moreau, the towing experience Tuesday was a lesson in frustration. She met with River Valley manager Edward Donahue and was told that she had violated parking regulations.

“That was the bottom line,” Moreau said. “There was a sign up and that was it. They just don’t seem to get it.”

The problem, said Moreau, is that the parking regulations are not clear. There are no parking signs on one side of the street and no parking signs near a fire lane. There are mounds of snow heaped in some spots, and more snow covering numbers and letters on the ground.

So when she pulled up to her client’s apartment building Tuesday and found more than a dozen open slots, she thought she was fine to park there for a few hours.

“It looked like a perfectly legitimate parking spot,” Moreau said. “I thought it must be a visitor’s spot. There were probably 15 of them open.”

At the heart of the confusion is a parking policy that went into effect at the apartment complex in 2001. Since then, all cars parked there are required to show a valid parking permit. Those that don’t are subject to towing by Anytime Towing trucks, which make random patrols through the parking lots.

Signs are posted advising that parking requires a permit. But Moreau said the signs are hard to see, and they don’t specify that short-term parking is a problem.

River Valley is owned by realty giant Harbor Management. The complex is under the management of Donahue. On Wednesday, he was busy with damages and other problems caused by the wind and could not be reached for comment.

Moreau said she talked to Donahue while trying to get her car back, but she found no satisfaction in the conversation. The fact that she had been there to provide services for a tenant was not a consideration, she said.

“Here are people who are the neediest of the needy,” Moreau said. “The people who are trying to help them get their cars towed. It really isn’t protecting the rights of the tenants.”

Moreau and her colleague found themselves outside without their cars. They had no idea who had taken them or where they could be picked up.

“We started making calls,” Moreau said. “Some people from an apartment came out, and they were very sympathetic.”

Since the new parking policy went into effect in 2001, many River Valley tenants have called the Sun Journal to complain that their visitors’ vehicles had been hauled away. They complain that the parking policy is unclear and unfair.

Like Moreau, those callers focused their anger toward River Valley management, not Anytime Towing, which was hired to routinely patrol the parking lot.

“They were very, very nice,” Moreau said of the towing company. “They could not have be any nicer.”

Moreau expected to meet with her supervisors today at Auburn-based Literacy Volunteers. She and her colleague might get financial help with the cost of the towing. But Moreau’s concern was less about her own situation, and more about concerns for people at River Valley who might stop getting help because providers of that help are unable to park there.

“These are people who are trying to better themselves,” Moreau said. “They rely on help from outside. It’s all just very frustrating.”