Fort Oglethorpe buys 3 vehicles

♦ The police department gets two new Dodge Chargers, and the building department gets a Ford pickup.

The city of Fort Oglethorpe has approved three vehicle purchases: two for its police department, and the other for its building, planning and zoning department.

During the City Council meeting Monday night, Dec. 10, Police Chief Mike Helton explained his department’s desire to add new two vehicles.

“The recommendation before you tonight is to purchase two Dodge Chargers to add to our fleet, and to retire a couple of old Crown Victorias,” Helton said. “We went out to bid utilizing the new state requirement, submitted the bids to over 100 different suppliers and actually only got two formal bids back.”

Helton said one bid came in from Prater Ford, and the other from Mountain View Dodge Chrysler.

“There was only one of those two that submitted for the Dodge Chargers. We’re trying to use those not just to match our fleet but they’re also very reliable vehicles for patrol work,” Helton said. “We recommend to you tonight the purchase of two of those from our SPLOST funds. They’ve gone up since we bought them the last time, but the total cost is $52,915.”

The board unanimously approved the bid from Mountain View Dodge Chrysler.

Helton added that there will be additional adjustments that’ll be made to the vehicles such as equipment mounting, but said the vehicles should be out on the road for the department in March.

In addition to the police vehicles, the board also signed off on the purchase of a truck for the building, planning and zoning department.

Building, Planning and Zoning Director Rick Quarles said the best bid for that vehicle was from Prater.

“It’s with Prater, and it’s a Ford F-150 pickup truck in the amount of $29,870.68,” Quarles said. “The current vehicle that the building planning and zoning drives is an Explorer and it’s not sufficient for the job requirements.”