Kendall County Times

The Joliet city council recently discussed some issues the police force has been having with its vehicles. 

During the Nov. 1 city council meeting, City Manager James Capparelli discussed how the city had its orders for new squad cars cancelled. The city spent a lot of time and effort trying to get 25 additional cars into the budget so that it can get them as soon as possible. The city manager asked for emergency authority in the budget to buy replacement cars outside of the approved budget, which was granted. 

Councilmember Larry Hug gave some background on the issue with the vehicles. More than 60% of law enforcement vehicles are from the Ford Motor Company, and they took too many orders and were unable to complete about 20,000 of them. There were a lot of municipalities in the state and nationwide that had their orders cancelled. The city needs ten vehicles right away and 15 next year.

"It really goes back to Ford Motor Company. And of course, we always use Ford Motor Company because they are the most popular, but also many places – private businesses as well as municipalities and public organizations – try to stay with one manufacturer because there's all kinds of support that needs to be done," Hug said.

The city worked with a local dealership to get some new cars for roughly the same amount, however they gave the city a strict deadline. There will be a mix of Ford and Dodge vehicles, different than the city’s normally all-Ford fleet, but the dealership also assured the city that they will have access to any fixes or upgrades in the system that become needed.