CRESTVIEW — The Crestview Police Department’s 26 patrol cars are nearing the end of their service life after being driven hundreds of miles almost daily the past eight years.
But there’s no budget money to refurbish or replace the 2007 Ford Crown Victorias, which, Police Chief Tony Taylor said, are past their prime. “We can get between six and eight years out of an individual car,” he said.
When all the cars were purchased in one year, there was no long-range replacement plan in place for when they wore out.Now, “It’s time to pay that bill,” Taylor said. “We can’t keep driving them forever.”
PUBLIC IMAGE
Police Officer Michael Tingle drives one of the Crown Vics five days a week, averaging between 100 and 150 miles a day. At least, he does those days that it’s running. A few weeks ago, it wasn’t going anywhere. “My left front wheel fell off when I was backing out of a parking spot,” Tingle said.
Over the last year, he has also had to have the car’s water pump replaced, the thermostat repaired and for awhile had to drive with brake lights permanently activated.
“This is the public image of the police department,” Tingle said, patting the car’s hood, from which patches of paint have peeled off. “This is what people see. It’s our office. We’re in it all day.”
REFURBISH OR REPLACE?
Replacing the cars with fully equipped Ford Interceptors can run as much as $32,000 per car, even under a state purchasing contract, Taylor said.
The Crown Vic — “probably the best police car that I’ve ever seen,” he said — is no longer manufactured. But he found an alternative at almost half the cost of a new Interceptor. “I found a company up in Georgia that completely refurbishes them from the ground up — suspension, engine, everything — for $18,000,” he said.
Last year, to reconstitute the department’s K9 unit, officers turned to the public for contributions. Taylor said maybe he should seek business sponsorships to buy or rebuild police cars.
Since the economic downturn began in 2007, “Other agencies have actually sold ad space on their patrol cars,” he said. “But I’m not going down that road.”
'TOUGH DECISIONS'
There are other concerns, Taylor said. “We don’t have functioning in-car dash cameras. We don’t have body cams. It’s a whole gamut of things.”
For example, the department’s computer system works off a server bought in 2004. “Our operating system is failing. It doesn’t meet the needs of the agency,” Taylor said. “The data it’s spitting out is incorrect, as we found out in recent public debates about crime stats.”
A Monday City Council workshop set to discuss a proposed fire assessment fee — a Crestview Fire Department plan for long-range equipment purchase planning — became mostly about the need to plan for citywide equipment and infrastructure upgrades and replacement.
“Someone has to raise taxes or rates…. There's some very tough decisions to be made right now,” Public Works Director Wayne Steele told councilmen during the meeting. “You can't sit there and not make a decision. You can't keep doing that over and over.”
Taylor also was blunt in his remarks.
“The easy thing for you to do would be to do nothing and continue the path your predecessors have set us on … with absolutely no plan of recovery or thought for the future,” he told the council.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview police chief: 26 patrol cars need replacement (VIDEO)