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TOLEDO -- It's been three months since News 11 exposed the huge amounts of money spent to keep Toledo police cars maintained and repaired. Now, the police chief says the city has made a step in the right direction.
After being ignored last year, the department will soon get 35 new marked cars. Plus, there seems to be more interest from sponsors to place ads to help with buying new cars.
Our investigation uncovered the millions of dollars being poured into old, rundown, even duct-taped police cars. "You look at the rusty side of the cars... you look at the bumpers that are falling off," said Public Safety Chair and City Councilwoman Wilma Brown. Tuesday afternoon city council voted to lease the 35 vehicles at $30,000 each from Charlie's Dodge in Maumee for the next three years.
The total cost is a little more than a million dollars for all of them. Then at the end of the lease, the city can buy the cars for a dollar each. They will replace some of the older police cars. "A lot of those vehicles have over 100,000 miles so 35 new vehicles is going to improve the situation greatly," said Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre.
In fact, Tuesday night we found TPD car number 151 being towed. At last check this car had more than 110,000 miles on it and the city had paid close to $32,000 just to maintain it. That's more than the total cost of one of the new cars just approved.
"We have spent an enormous amount of money keeping the vehicles maintained," said Chief Navarre. "So, with the newer vehicles our maintenance costs will go down considerably," he added.
He also told us he has five different sponsors interested in placing ads on police cars. Each sponsor would spend $15,000. "Hopefully that money will be used next year to either offset the second year of the lease payment of the vehicles we are going to be receiving this year or will be used to purchase additional vehicles," explained Navarre.
The chief has not said yet who those sponsors are.