At the start of the new year, Hamilton County commissioners may agree to buy more than 30 cars for the sheriff and various government departments and spend $102,000 prepping, clearing and studying parts of a 300-acre plot at Enterprise South industrial park to make way for new development.
“We are buying the stew out of cars today,” Finance Committee Chairman Joe Graham said at Wednesday’s non-voting agenda session.
Commissioners discussed buying three dozen cars in six resolutions. Most of the cars would go to Sheriff Jim Hammond’s office for use in crime scene investigation and patrol. But car purchases also were discussed for the district attorney general’s and county trustee’s offices.
The purchase was included in the budget commissioners passed at mid-year. But commissioners grilled Hammond, Trustee Bill Hullander and county finance department staff about the purchases. At times, some seemed to be against the spending.
But Hammond pushed back. Crime scene and patrol cars are heavily used, and the amount of gear deputies have to carry with them always increases, he said.