Port Arthur Police Department Gets New Vehicles To Update Fleet

Drivers careening through Port Arthur, TX starting November 19 may want to watch out for officers of the PAPD. They will have shiny new wheels.

PAPD will receive eighteen new vehicles to replace some of the older vehicles in its fleet after the Port Arthur City Council approved the expenditure October 16. The department will receive eight white Dodge Chargers and ten Chevy Tahoes in early December, Lt. Steve Brinson said.

The department purchased the eight Dodge Chargers for $260,095. And the ten Chevy Tahoes would come for a price of $364,760.

Two of the Tahoes would replace the department’s crime scene processing vehicles, and one would go to the K-9 unit. The rest, Brinson said, would be for general patrol.

The purchase reflects a plan to modernize the police’s fleet while preventing the entire fleet from accruing high levels of mileage simultaneously, Floyd Johnson, City Manager, said.

"A fleet of as many vehicles as we have can be pretty costly," he said. "If we don’t properly manage the preventative maintenance and the rotation of those vehicles in such a way as to get maximum efficiency out of them, then we are not being good stewards of the public’s money."

The police department has seventy-five cars in its patrol fleet, and once they hit 100,000 miles it is typically time to order additional vehicles, Brinson said. PAPD budgets for new cars every year and already has a running list of replacements for next year.

It is a revolving door of replacement vehicles for PAPD to keep its fleet up-to-date. But Brinson said he was ready to get the wheels on the ground and spinning all over town.