Subscribe
For more great content
Subscribe
For more great content
Not all new police cars per state are built the same.
The Lathrop City Council recently approved the amendment to the service contract with NextGen Alpha Upfitting for the installation of missing lighting in the headlights and side panels for 15 police vehicles.
Coupled that with ballistic panels needed for one captain and one chief of police vehicles.
Todd Sebastian, who is Director of Parks, Recreation & Fleet for the City of Lathrop, said at the Sept. 8 meeting that the majority of the new vehicles were purchased in Colorado and some in Utah.
He indicated that those out-of-state vehicles are built differently than those used in California – such vehicles (fully equipped) in California are in high demand and often go first to law enforcement agencies in the bigger cities.
The Lathrop Police Department has only been around since the summer of 2022 and continues to go through “a learning curve,” Sebastian said.
According to the staff report, 15 of the 16 police vehicles were not built with the red and blue emergency light features in the headlights and side panels.
In addition to that, the one captain and one chief of police cars were not equipped with ballistic panels necessary to enhance officer safety.
The cost for NextGen Alpha Upfitting to provide and install those missing headlights and side panels for the 15 police vehicles came up to $15,697. The upfit ballistic panels for the captain and police chief cars was $10,435, bringing the total amount to about $26,000 – the City has sufficient funds allocated for this in the 2025-2026 budget.
The amendment to the service contract states that “purchasing procedures may be eliminated in emergency situations of efficiently and timely maintain essential public services for the preservation of public health, safety, and welfare of the community,” allowing NextGen Upfitting to handle the task at hand.
 
 
 
 

source