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Sentinel Photo/TRAVIS MORSE
NEW SQUAD CARS — The Mount Vernon City Council Tuesday approved purchasing five new squad cars for the Mount Vernon Police Department. The council also accepted a quote to equip those vehicles.
MOUNT VERNON — The Mount Vernon City Council Tuesday approved purchasing five new squad cars for the Mount Vernon Police Department, as well as accepting a quote to equip those vehicles.
According to Mount Vernon Police Chief Robert Brands, the city’s normal replacement program for squad cars is to buy three new ones a year. However, for the last two years, the city was only able to purchase two instead of three. That’s why five are being purchased now, Brands said.
“Normally, we do three a year,” Brands said. “However, a couple years ago there was a shortage of squad cars and we were only able to get two and last year we got two. … These five are to help make up the shortage and for our normal rotation of three a year.”
The council approved waiving bidding to purchase the five squad cars from Morrow Brothers Ford in Greenfield, Illinois, at a cost of $45,788 per vehicle. The city had intended to purchase the five cars through the state contract. However, the order did not get placed in time, so Fleet Services Director Mike Shannon looked for other purchase opportunities and contacted Morrow Brothers Ford.
“They used to hold the state contract,” said City Manager Nathan McKenna, of Morrow Brothers. “Now, they have a national government contract, and they have several of these same squad cars available. And they make the same model, specifications and the pricing is actually cheaper than what we were going to be able to purchase through the state contract.”
The Morrow Brothers pricing was $45,788 per squad, which is lower than the state price of $47,577, McKenna said.
“So that would be a total savings of $8,945 for all five squad cars,” McKenna said.
To equip the squad cars, the city council approved a quote from Ray O’Herron of Danville for $55,365. This was the lowest of the three quotes received by Chief Brands. The other quotes were $68,512 from Utilitac Equipment & Upfitting out of Ridgway, Pennsylvania and $61,802 from DataTronics out of Godfrey.
Later during Tuesday’s city council meeting, audience member Tanja Wilborn posed several questions to council members that she had received from people who had reached out to her electronically during the meeting. One of the questions was why the city did not “shop local” to outfit the new squad cars, as it would be a great way to put money back into the community. The questioner suggested that Audio Visionz by Midwest Truck Accessories could possibly have been a local firm to use.
Brands said Wednesday that as far as he is aware, Audio Visionz does not outfit police vehicles, which is a “very specialized service.”
Brands estimated that it will likely take about four to six months to get the new squad cars out on the road.
For more information, contact Mount Vernon City Hall or the Mount Vernon Police Department.
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