Montville Police Request Three New Crown Vics

Finance Committee members, , discussed a budget request for three new Crown Victoria police cars.

One of the reason for the three-car request is that no cruisers were purchased in the current year. , who was not at the meeting, said Wednesday that one of the advantages of the fleet program is that some years the department will buy three cars, some years two cars, some years one, "And sometimes we buy no cars. Last year was that year."

Another reason is that Ford is planning on closing the Canadian plant that makes these cars, and the department has reasons for wanting that particular car and model.

The department has a good supply of Crown Vic parts in stock, Finance Director Terry Hart said, relating a conversation she had had with one of the Montville Police sergeants.

He also explained, Hart said, that the department can transfer equipment from older vehicles to newer ones, cutting the cost of options on new cars.

Fully equipped, the total for the three new cars would be $116,9990, Hart said.

With police equipment transferred from older vehicles, the cost of the three Crown Vics would be $79,525.

According to Popular Mechanics, some of the options that police departments are looking at to replace the Crown Victoria include a police version of the Dodge Charger, a police version of the Ford Taurus called the Police Interceptor, a Chevy Caprice police vehicle, and a new vehicle called the Carbon Motors E7, which was designed in part to respond to officers in 800 police departments across the country. To read the Popular Mechanics descriptions of these vehicles, click here.

At the meeting, a question about the number of cars the department needs.

“You don’t need a car for every police officer,” Jaskiewicz said. “You get so many cars, and you let them share the cars, and you have a couple extra cars,” he said.

Bunnell said on Wednesday that the department has 18 vehicles. “Only because of this program,” he said, “are we able to hold the mileage down.”

The department fleet racks up a total of about 250,000 miles a year. Bunnell says that if the fleet is reduced, that mileage will be spread over fewer cars, adding more mileage more quickly to the fleet.

Right now, he says, there are five cars at or near 100,000 miles on the odometer.

“Because of our system, because of our fleet the way it is, we can have 120,000 miles on a car and still be OK.”

Bunnell says the large-fleet system saves the town a lot of money, and that Montville is the only town that has this system.

Jaskiewicz said, during the meeting, that the reason Bunnell is asking for three cars is that the new-car request has been minimized the past few years.

But, Jaskiewicz said, “You don’t need a car for every police officer. You get so many cars, and you let them share cars, and you have a couple extra cars.”

Cars sit empty and unused when officers are not working, Jaskiewicz said. If an officer is on vacation, or out sick, his or her car is not used.

Senior police officers who live in Montville take their cars home, Bunnell says.  Jaskiewicz said this is part of the police contract. Having a cruiser parked in the driveway is a deterrent to crime, he said. Also, officers called out to incidents in town will have their cars with them.

Bunnell says that right now, “Eight of us take cars home.” The contract allows for 13 cars to go home with officers, he says.

At the meeting, Finance Committee and Town Council member Gary Murphy recalled the idea that officers would take better care of a vehicle that they alone used, rather than one they shared.

“I don’t like to see police cars with 100,000 miles or better on them,” he said. “You’re talking about officers that travel at a high rate of speed, in vehicles with over 100,000 miles on them…” Murphy said he thought the older cars should be taken out of service, or put into the town fleet.

In the end, Bunnell was philosophical about the issue.

“Whether you have a budget or not,” he says, “you still have to respond to crime.”

An earlier version of this story had an incorrect number of annual fleet mileage.