Consultant: Chesapeake has too many take-home vehicles

Apparently you are as clueless as you claim our council is. Take away the cars and lose officers and prospective officers to other jurisdictions. Without the benefit, the officers will need substatial pay increases to keep up with other jurisdictions. The car is cheaper than the retirement pay, etc. It is really simple math. To get the car in Chesapeake, the officer must live within the city limits and have at least 5 years of service. This encourages our officers to live and invest in their city, encourages them to reach longevity - in today's age of the generation Y workplace, this is a big deal! Allowing personal use requires the officers to carry their badge and weapon thus making them available to respond to an emergency. When the car is parked outside a business, even for personal reasons, crime is detered at that business during that time period. Do you own a business Rick? Do you want to

your comments about paying school taxes are dead wrong. Just because you do not have kids is a poor excuse for not paying school taxes. I know someone paid for you to attend school and receive an education. When you go to the doctors I want you to pay double because you did do not want to help with the early education of your doctor. No one likes to pay taxes, but pick a better fight. The only people who deserve a break on taxes are the elderly or handicap person who survive on fixed income.
As for the take home car policy. Keep the policy and the cars. I wonder if the "consultant" look at response times compared to other cities. I also wonder if the consultant compared other take home policies with comparable cities/counties to Chesapeake.

The company I work for charges a personal use fee for those employees with company cars. I believe it is about $70 per paycheck. $70 X 26 = $1820 per year for personal use. Chesapeake should go to a system like that. Additionally, any personal miles should be reported as income to the IRS. I hope they follow those rules as well.

First they're not a deterrent to crime. The bad guys know there is a cop living there and asleep all day, working all night. A friend had her house broken into and several cops live in the same block.
We have too few fire stations, bridges going to hell and we let people take city vehicles home and out on errands?
Cut the perks and save the gas $$$ as well as stupid consulting fees. If the people we elect can't figure simple things like this out then we need new people. All one has to do is ride by the city parking lot at noon on any weekday and count the cars sitting there. That's about how many they need to cut. Now where's my fee Chesapeake?

Maybe we can pay a consultant to identify a Parking area for all of these take-home cars. It should only cost a few million in tax dollars. But hey, they can show a savings in fuel costs. Chesapeake WAKE UP!!!

Just looking at those numbers. $68,000 a year for 259 vehicles is about $22/month for each vehicle in fuel. That doesn't seem like much of an issue to me. What exactly is that age criteria? I can't see an older car getting more expensive than a new one until it gets into the mid-100K mile zone where most the parts are worn out and need replacing.

What a joke, do our city leaders have any thinking ability or is their only idea "lets hire a consultant". I personally believe the city leaders hire consultants so they cannot be blamed if the recommendation is wrong. The city already knows the answer, but they want to pay someone else to give them the answer so if/when things go wrong their hands are clean and they can blame consultants.

I don't think as a single adult with no children, I should have to pay any taxes for schools, let alone things like busses and especially activity busses for extra-curricular activities. I have no children and no association with any children anywhere. I wish them the best, but that tax burden should fall on those that chose to have children.

"Cha-ching"....depositing that consultant fee into the bank. LOL. Go ahead and take the cars away. More time for motorcycle riding!

At what PRICE are the citizens paying for efficiency?

New City Manager $165,000+ Benefits
Consultant Fees $100,000+
Consultants tell Council what the City Manager wants them to hear. The employees receive less benefits and the City Department Directors are forced to find new jobs.

This leads to a conclusion:
Our City is in disarray and the City Council members are clueless.

The final PRICE..... Hundreds of thousands of OUR dollars in WASTEFUL Spending and Morale destroying.

So...fuel costs $69K/year ... I wonder how many hundred thousand that paid to that consultant.

this should be a perk for all law enforcment they barely get paid,maybe this is the answer to more and better police officers so i say give them big fat raises or give them a ride....or give them both, the next life they may save might be yours!!!!!

There's a Portsmouth police car 'living' in Greenbrier. But Portsmouth's policy is probably different.

I do not see a problem with an off-duty officer taking a vehicle home, considering the upsides. Now, as I've experienced before and my father had a terrifying experience as well, was an off-duty officer not stopping to assist with police issues. In my case, I walked right up to the parked squad car to have him say he was 'not on the clock' but that he would call somebody. He then left. My father was helping a bad accident scene and was trying to wave down an emergency vehicle and saw a squad car drive past with kids in the back, an adult male watching from the front passenger seat, and an older woman driving with her hands on the 10 and 2. They never did a thing to assist even though traffic was creeping past. Hopefully those are just 'exceptional circumstances' that just makes a bad situation look worse. But suppose its not and it happens to you...

What you observed I can assure you would be in violation of a rule (or spirit of a rule) and would bet that officer's supervisor would like to know about. That was definately taking advantage of what has a much different intention. He's the guy who could/would ruin a good thing for all. Another benefit of take home cars is the upkeep of the unit. The cars are well taken care of, service and cosmetically. Next time you are in Norfolk take a good look at most of their fleet. When my "take home" was down for whatever reason, the pool car I used was just that, a pool car. One more item to consider. At such a time when that "take home" unit is ready for liquidation, it brings hundreds if not thousands more than some ole worn out, abused, wrecked up pool car does at the city auction. It's a useful tool that needs a little fine tuning and requires SOME officers to make better decisions on when to take the POV.

The CPD has a policy covering the use of take home vehicles. CPD vehicles only leave the city to attend police functions(court, schools, etc.) or when taking the shortest route to another part of Chesapeake(an example would be driving from Airline Bl. to Portsmouth Bl. via Hodges Ferry Rd. in Portsmouth). Officers using the vehicles off duty are required to monitor calls on the radio and act on any serious violation they observe or can respond to. Officers in personal vehicles "that would be there anyway" are not required to act. As far as having thier family with them as they travel within the city while off duty... This encourages the officer to use the vehicle off duty providing increased presence throughout the city and reduces response time to serious calls. Policy is in place to address how the officer is to respond if they have any non sworn officer in the vehicle with them. The point is, before any of you start condemning this program, check it out first. It mutually benefits all involved, citizens, officers and the city's budget.

You mean you needed a "consultant" to tell you that? Everyone and his third cousins drive a city vehicle home. Tell them all to stop as Virginia Beach has done.

I support Marked take home police cars in every city. I'd love to have one parked next door to my home as I feel it provides a real improvement in the community. Mark them all and pass them out however no family members should ever be permited to ride in them.

Marked Police cars do make other drivers safer!

The take home car program works and has for years. An officer that has his own personal car (which is basically his office) will take much better care of it than someone who has to share a car with many different officers. The cars in the take home program I bet last many many more years than those pool cars that are on the road 24/7. So its a definate money saver.

These take home vehicles should be taxed on the payroll like any other take home vehicle whether they are public safety vehicles or city vehicles. Countless times I've seen the officer and family members at local shopping centers and restaurants (regardless of community). Do I feel safer, no. These same police officers would be at that location without the taxpayer subsidized vehicle. A significant number of these take home vehicles are unmarked and serve no "visual" deterrent. Many are used by administrative staff, not the people on the street. Because of take home vehicles, a larger number of vehicles are purchased and maintained because the fleet size is expanded by a factor of close to 3 for the 3 8-hour shifts, or fewer vehicles are on the street providing patrol coverage.

I like the idea. I have one parked across the street and it has to deter crime.

Take home cars for police officers make sense, IF the officer lives within the city where he or she works. It reduces wear and tear on the car, it allows for an immediate response by the officer should an emergency occur, and it alerts folks in the neighborhood that there is a police presence there. What we should not be seeing is a marked Portsmouth PD car, occupied by an off-duty officer and his family, shopping at Landstown Commons in Virginia Beach (which I witnessed a week ago Sunday). Back and forth to work, well, maybe, but using it for personal business outside your jurisdiction, that should be a no-no. I know that the cars we ran 24/7 when I was stationed at Langley were overused, abused, and maintenance nightmares due to being on the road all the time, operated by different drivers every 8-12 hours.

They state the cost of the take home vehicles is due to fuel cost. Excuse me for asking but wth does the cost of fuel have to do with taking home the vehicle??? I personally have a company vehicle. My personal miles are seperated from my work related miles and I pay for the personal fuel usage. It's a fairly simple calculation. Duh. Deduct the fuel, and let them take the vehicles home Mr Rocket Scientist.

I 100% think the police should have take home cars. However its interesting how quick the city manager defended his guy the police chief when just recently he threw the fire department under the bus because of an audit.

On week days a school bus picks up one child in our neighborhood and that child is the only passenger on the bus. Is that economical? Why are the parents distancing themselves from their children? They could car pool with other parents of children that are attending the same programs. One bus for one child is not economically responsibly.

I agree with the take home policy. It benifits the community in general. And what did the study cost? Maybe that information needs to publicize as well as the results of the study. Instead of hiring a consultant, the smart idea would be to canvas the communities that pay the taxes that keep the cars on the road. There is nothing to prevent police officers from going door to door to ask citizens how they feel about certain issues regarding the public safety providers. Millions of taxpayer dollars are spent every year by city governments as well as the federal government paying for studies to gain useless information.

How much did the city pay to find this out?? more then the cost of the Take Home vehicles I bet

police taking marked cruisers home with them. They show a presence in their respective neighborhoods. Those up to no good think twice when they see a police car around.

For all of the many reasons listed already: increased visibility, reduced repair bills, reduced maintenance bills, increased fuel economy, hiring incentive, greater accountability of the drivers/users, and on and on... Those who have had an off duty officer in a take home car stop to help them at an accident, disabled vehicle, directions, break up a fight, catch a thief and so on... Speak up now!!! There are other ways to save on fuel costs. Change to slick top cars, no light bar or push bumper but keep the markings. Studies show at least a 7% fuel savings, multiply that by the number of cars and gallons used = $$$$ saved!!!!

in regards to the comment about parents driving children to school extracurricular activities...

One bus uses a lot less fuel than 50 vehicles with a parent and a child or two all going to the same place.

How do you think most children are able to participate in these activities? A majority of parents work during the hours that after-school activities are held.

Should we force a single parent to quit their job and go on the welfare rolls because you think taxpayers shouldn't pay for activity buses?

How much money really comes out of each taxpayer's taxes to haul these kids? Do you think it would really reduce your tax burden? Save a nickel, destroy the environment?