News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville Police Department set to get seven new vehicles for its fleet.
Chief Randy Evans said they hope the vehicles come in on time this fall, despite recent issues with vehicle orders.
“It’s not uncommon in this day and time for orders to be canceled and I know many of the departments experienced that,” Evans said. “Orders got canceled, contracts had to be reestablished and then reordered and then everything went up exponentially. So as much confidence as I can have, we believe they’re on the way.”
Cookeville City Council approved the purchase of three admin SUVs, 3 pursuit vehicles, and one Chevrolet pickup truck. The total cost for the budgeted items comes in at some $245,112.
Evans said that the administrative SUVs will go to investigators or admin that no longer need pursuit-rated vehicles.
“You’re literally six to $10,000 cheaper for that vehicle than pursuit-rated vehicles that’s the reason we purchased those,” Evans said. “Of course, the hybrid is a patrol and pursuit-rated vehicle. We bought four last year but we still don’t have enough data just yet to determine what the cost savings are going to be so we went ahead and budgeted for the hybrids, we would probably not make that purchase immediately, but we went ahead and got an approval. Once we feel comfortable that they are going to be a cost saving we’ll go ahead and purchase those later in the year.”
Evans said that the pickup will be used for the department’s first-ever command trailer and was budgeted out of its drug fund. Also approved was the lease renewal for four of the department’s motorcycles at $12,000.
