At $1 Each, Police Cars With Corporate Logos Are A Deal For Florida Town
Catharine Skipp, The Washington Post
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If you saw a car in your rearview mirror with flashing lights and a McDonald’s logo on the hood, would you pull over?
In these days of budget-cutting and creative financing, a Florida Panhandle town commission has voted to purchase 15 police cruisers for only $ 15 -- resplendent with corporate sponsors.
The mayor of Springfield, a suburb of Panama City with 9,000 residents, estimates his town will save $ 500,000 over the three years it takes for delivery of the new cruisers, half the Police Department’s annual budget.
“Roughly, we are talking about $ 1 million in cars and equipment that is going to be freed up to do other things. We could hire more police officers; the Fire Department needs another truck,” Mayor Robert Walker said.
“We had some concerns over the sponsors,” he said. “We don’t want to do anything that would make our city a laughingstock. We have pretty much final say on the designs; it can’t be anything with alcohol, tobacco or gambling. It is going to be a recognizable police car.”
Police Chief Sam Slay found information about the program on the Internet and presented the idea to the City Commission.
“If it doesn’t go well, no other police department is going to go for it,” Slay said. “I’ve had calls from Arkansas, Mississippi, St. Louis, Orlando, Miami police departments asking about this.”
The cars come from Government Acquisitions in Charlotte, N.C. “Any sponsors on the vehicles have to be done tastefully,” said the company’s Ken Allison. “Lawyers and bail bondsmen are welcome, too. One police chief was joking that we could put the sponsor across the trunk, then as they are putting (suspects) in the car, they could write down the number.
“The city of Mooresville, North Carolina, approached us because they are at a 3-to-1 ratio of officers to cars” and needed more vehicles, he said. “Being that they are known as Race City, USA, they wanted to do a NASCAR theme.
“We are doing this to promote homeland security. We want every officer to be supplied with what they need.”
Charging the cities a dollar a car legalizes the contract, said Allison, who is talking to about 75 cities about sponsored vehicles.
In Springfield, Slay says the officers are excited about the new cruisers. “They are going to get everything they want -- radar, onboard cameras, laptop computers. They are pumped. They all want to know who is going to get the Tide car and who is going to get the Viagra car.”