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DPS to get more vehicles for operations
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Posted on Oct 13 2004
The Department of Public Safety intends to buy more vehicles for operations within the next six months, according to DPS commissioner Edward Camacho.
Camacho said in an interview that, although the department currently has enough vehicles, more will be needed soon to continue with operations.
“I’ve already instructed [the administrative] personnel to start working on procurement of new equipment, especially vehicles and communications equipment,” he said.
The department chief said he intends to purchase four vehicles to add to the current fleet, but explained that two vehicles will be purchased each quarter in the next six months.
“We will only buy two each quarter. It’s better to do it that way than to get all [four] at once and drain up all our money,” he said.
He said funds for the purchase of the vehicles will be from the department’s fiscal year 2005 funds.
Camacho said between 18 to 24 vehicles patrol the streets on a daily basis, depending on how many are being serviced in shops.
He said several department vehicles are still in auto shops, and that once released back to the department, more will be turned over for servicing.
“We’ve been able to pull out a whole bunch of vehicles from the shop, and they’re already operational, but when you have a lot of vehicles operational, that means some of them are breaking down and they’ve got to go back into the shop,” he said during a separate interview. “So we’re waiting now for the other ones that are already in the shop to come out before we put these in.”
Earlier in the year, Camacho said several vehicles will not be qualified for operational use even after being repaired “because a lot of them exceed the national standard mileage for our kind of operation, which is 75,000 miles. I can wave the standard but it’s too risky.”
He said that the cars will be tested upon complete repair and several might still be qualified for operational use.
