Paul Page

By the beginning of September, Mayor Ron Littlefield plans to make good on his campaign promise to outfit all Chattanooga police patrol officers with take-home cars.

How the city and police department will come up with the last few cars has yet to be determined, said Richard Beeland, the mayor’s spokesman.

The last report the police department received from the city showed it needed about four cars to complete the fleet, which would then give take-home cars to about 420 officers, Deputy Chief Mark Rawlston said.

“The last time I got a reporting from fleet (operations), which was within the last two weeks, we were within four cars of having enough cars to do that,” he said.

The city and police department are working to find the last cars, whether through purchases or through utilizing existing vehicles in the fleet, Mr. Beeland said. Giving patrol officers take-home cars benefits not only the officers, but also the community, he said.

“When they take that home and it sits in their driveway, it provides a visual that there are police in the area,” Mr. Beeland said.

However, Paul Page, the city’s director of general services said the cars already exist within the department fleet and simply need to be assigned to officers.

“All the indications were from them to us that there was not any additional cars needed,” Mr. Page said. “It was the assignment of the car that sits there.”

Officers tend to take better care of take-home cars, especially when they’re responsible for maintenance and upkeep, he added.

If the city wanted to purchase new cars, they would not be available by the first of next month, Mr. Page said. The city typically does not buy new cars for officers, but rather replaces old vehicles on a one-to-one basis so the total number of vehicles does not change, he added.

In the past, officers earned take-home cars after three years of service and the number of points they’d accumulated based on seniority and job description, Chief Rawlston said. That system will remain in place in case the departments runs out of take-home cars, he said.

The number of officers with take-home cars does not include those who live outside the county. They were asked to park their cars at the service center on Amnicola Highway instead of parking them in various lots — shopping centers, fire departments, businesses — on county lines. While some fussed about the change, which affects about 30 to 40 officers, Chief Rawlston said the department made the decision with security in mind.

“Some of those cars were left parked in what we felt were unsecure locations,” he said. “It’s not a risk we’re willing to take with our equipment any more.”