BETHEL – After two failed attempts Monday night to decide whether to get rid of a police cruiser with high mileage or keep it until next summer, selectmen tabled the matter.
One option is to get rid of the 2003 Ford cruiser, which has 253,000 miles on it and go with a two-car fleet. The latest addition is a 2006 Ford, which is being outfitted.
The other option is to keep the old car and try a three-car fleet.
Selectmen Reggie Brown, Dennis Doyon, Donald Bennett and Chairman Stan Howe discussed the matter at length among themselves and with Town Manager Scott Cole, Police Chief Alan Carr and Sgt. S.R. White.
Cole said Bethel has maintained a two-car fleet since the late 1990s and currently schedules coverage to provide at least one officer on duty, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Because current police coverage policies result in approximately 135,000 miles per year being driven, regardless of the number of vehicles in inventory, the logical action appears to be movement toward a four-vehicle fleet,” Cole wrote in a Dec. 3 memo to the board.
Additionally, he said, future budgeting would be needed to buy one cruiser a year, to be correlated with the annual disposal of one police vehicle.
Brown’s motion to put the high-mileage cruiser up for sale to the highest bidder, gained his vote and Doyon’s. But Howe and Bennett voted against it, defeating it.
Bennett then made a motion to keep the high-mileage cruiser and try a three-car fleet until June to determine its advantages. But that wasn’t seconded.
Howe then decided that the board should table it to their Jan. 9 meeting when Selectman Jack Cross, the potential tie-breaker, could attend.
After leaving the board meeting, Carr said it would not be good for officer safety to use the high-mileage car.
White took it a step further.
“It’s not good for public safety either. If we can’t respond, they’re the ones in jeopardy,” he said.
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