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Does anyone know of a bike collective in California that has an arrangement with the city on abandoned bikes?
We (Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen) have an agreement with the City of Sacramento regarding abandoned bikes and other "evidence". They typically handle all of the details regarding what the law concerns. We just get a shipment of (usually non-working) bikes once a week. Most of them are in really rough shape. Because of the shortage of space we end of sending some of them to the metal recycler after stripping off what we can.
The one condition of this arrangement is that we give away a bike or two to a needy individual every once and a while. We usually don't give any bikes away but occasionally we make exceptions. We often make large donations to other non-profit organizations (homeless shelters, etc). We like to encourage folks to contribute *something* instead of just getting a bike for free. Our Earn-A-Bike program is still relatively immature but we typically give folks a bike after 5-10 hours of volunteer time. EAB participants can only earn one bike in a lifetime (we might change this to one a year).
BTW, Hi Jason! Scott