Two Bartlesville police cars removed from service last year due to wear and tear are back in service — this time with the Nowata County Sheriff’s Office.
The City of Bartlesville donated two 2007 Chevy Impalas to NCSO during a brief ceremony held Thursday at the Bartlesville Police Department, 615 S. Johnstone Ave.
Bartlesville’s police vehicles are rotated on a regular basis to ensure that officers are equipped with up to date, reliable transportation. The rotation is made possible through the voter-approved half-cent Capital Improvement Projects program. Through the CIP program, seven police vehicles are purchased each year, and older vehicles, or those with higher mileage, are considered “surplus” and are sold at auction — often for less than it costs to ready them for use, according to BPD Capt. Rocky Bevard.
“These are vehicles that have well in excess of 100,000 miles on them and that are in frequent need of repair,” Bevard said. “It usually costs more to get them in good enough shape to sell than they bring at auction.”
Nowata County Sheriff Sandy Hadley said Nowata County budget constraints have impacted her department’s ability to obtain reliable transportation and that the department’s fleet had reached a point where the cost for repairs had exceeded the value.
“Basically, what this (donation) means is that we’ll be able to stay on the road,” Hadley said. “We can’t afford for deputies to not have reliable transportation, but these two working vehicles are going to keep us going where we need to go. I really want to thank Bartlesville Police Department — Chief (Tom) Holland and (Capt.) Rocky Bevard — for helping us out.”
Holland said the cars were two of the “best we had,” and that the City’s municipal garage had looked the cars over before making the switch.
“This is a good day for the Bartlesville police and the Nowata sheriff’s departments,” said Holland. “With permission from the city manager we were able to surplus two of our vehicles and donate them to Nowata County. I know they’re appreciative and very needful of this, and we’re just happy to be able to do it.”