I had my car stolen in San Francisco and had to pay to get it out. The city contracts out towing services and the contract doesn't say they can't charge for stolen cars, so...

The city made an effort to change this a few years back but stopped when they realized that they would have to pay the towing company a bunch of money from loss of revenue with the modified contract.

If you made a police report, make sure to amend it with any damages as well as towing fees suffered in case they catch the perpetrator. This will give you a basis for remediation.

It turns out that car theft is an extremely low priority class of crimes in the Bay Area.

That's so frustrating!! Sorry you had to go through that :( There should be an easy way to dispute that sort of thing that doesn't require you to take a day off work. There seems to be a lack of checks and balances in US that leads to all sorts of bs scenarios. It's one of the reasons I don't miss the country.

It turns out to be very difficult to sue a municipality. They need to be on the hook for a lot more than towing fees to make it cost effective.

Wow, that's $6500.