Harlan Kirgan
Eunice Police Chief Randy Fontenot was given the green light by aldermen to lease-purchase five Chevrolet Tahoe police units.
It’s the third time since Fontenot has been police chief that the city has approved a lease-purchase agreement for patrol vehicles.
The Board voted on April 10 to approve the purchase.
The five Tahoes will cost about $65,000 a year. Like the other lease-purchases, at the end of three years the city buys the units for $1 each.
The initial lease-purchase was for five Ford Explorers at annual cost of about $46,500. The next deal was for five Chevrolet Caprices at annual cost of about $53,000.
Deputy Chief Richard Daigle said the department has 38 patrol units of which 36 are usable. The oldest vehicle in the police fleet is a 2001 pickup truck used for litter patrol. The newest vehicles are the five 2016 Caprices.
Maintenance on the police units isn’t like the average car. The Caprices came equipped with two batteries, Daigle said. It is just one example of those the police units differ from consumer cars and SUVs.
Fontenot said since the department has acquired the 10 new lease-purchase vehicles since 2015, maintenance costs have dropped from about $60,000 a year to $40,000.
Adding to the saving is the new vehicles come with a three year warranty, he said.
Since Police Chief Gary “Goose” Fontenot the department has operated with officers taking their units home. Before that units were used on a 24-hour basis and lasted about a year or 80,000 miles.
Police vehicles now last up to 150,000 miles and about four to five years, Randy Fontenot said.
The vehicles are subjected to lots of stop and go use, rapid acceleration, heavy braking and a lot of time idling, he said.
“It’s hard mileage on a police car,” he said.
The new vehicles may take five months to arrive, he said.
An additional cost is equipping the vehicles with police gear that cost about $8,000 each.