Not only is Greensboro short at least 120 police officers, it appears that soon officers will be chasing criminals on foot because the city is just about to run out of police cars.
Assistant City Manager Larry Davis, at the Tuesday, June 6 City Council meeting, said that the Greensboro Police Department was down to one backup police car.
Davis said, “One fender bender and we are out of police cars.”
The agenda item was to allocate $1 million to purchase 24 police vehicles from a local dealer to provide backup vehicles and retire vehicles that need to be taken out of service.
Even if the vehicles can be purchased immediately, the city does not appear to have the ability to upfit vehicles for police in any reasonable amount of time. In November 2021, the City Council voted to purchase an additional 20 police vehicles a year to provide take-home cars for patrol officers. Since that time, reportedly 40 vehicles have been purchased but not a single one has been completely upfitted and turned over to the Police Department.
Assuming that there is no hanky-panky with the take-home cars and everything the city staff is saying about the inability to have cars upfitted in a timely manner is on the up and up, it takes over 18 months for the city to purchase a vehicle and turn it into a Greensboro police car.
If the city only has one backup vehicle and a bunch of vehicles that need to be replaced, it stands to reason that these 24 vehicles the city plans to purchase won’t be on the streets in 2023 and perhaps not in 2024.
Despite the fact that the council was told the city was in desperate need of additional police vehicles, Councilmember Sharon Hightower spoke against purchasing the vehicles because she said the city bus system needs improvements. Hightower also voted against purchasing the police vehicles.
However, the motion to approve the purchase passed on an 8-1 vote.
Councilmember Zack Matheny described the purchase as a “no-brainer.” But Hightower repeatedly interrupted him and accused Matheny of interrupting her. Hightower then interrupted Councilmember Goldie Wells, who ignored the interruption, and then interrupted Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter when they were speaking on the topic.
Soon, very soon…with the Council Greensboro has – the City can be flushed. Are City residents truly happy with this City Council?
Are these folks out of their collective minds? A strong and robust police force is critical to positive growth in a region, otherwise you end up looking like many of the other Democrat run cities (LA, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, Baltimore, et.al.)
To our illustrious City Council – do your job and fully fund the police department and give them the materials they need to do their job!
She needs to go along with the city manager!! Do not need to tell you who I am talking about. If you have any pride in this city you know who. While I am at it, all the city council needs to go.
How is that take home car program going, Nancy V?
The city of Greensboro for decades and this council specifically have put their non profit funding above basic services like police or infrastructure. The chickens are coming home to roost. Council needs to get a sense of urgency about the decline in resources, officers and equipment, before the heat of summer hits.
Unfitting the cars falls on the Patton Avenue garage.
Once again Hightower shows her ignorance and lack of support for our police department. One can only hope she, the mayor and other anti-police city council require immediate police assistance and NO officers are available.
City Council and City Government are broken and in need of a fix. If we, voters, don’t fix these mistakes then we are doomed to repeat them when we re-elect these clowns.
Yes Citizens, reducing crime is a priority for our council, we’ve decided to give Police Officers bus tokens so they can ride Ms. Hightower’s buses to crime scenes.
Maybe they can hop on a trolley to get across downtown.
Someone above mentioned the Patton garage. That’s where cars go to die. Be innovative mayor. Give GPD vehicle money and let them outsource the vehicle equipment. Quit making them go through the mafia like Patton garage. Do your job and look into that s$&tshow. They are making you as the council look like idiots. 18-2 years to get a vehicle on the road. The sheriff was able to find cars but the city can’t? You can’t advertise this as a recruiting tool. It’s having the opposite affect because recruits know it’s a scam. GPD will never have a true take home car program because our incompetent council won’t spend the $.
Professionals indeed…LMAO! What a pathetic bunch of left wing clowns. It is obvious the east Greensboro council has no plans to support the police, but will be the 1st to call. Please continue Johnson’s 900k/year or more program that shows the taxpayer zero results plus add all the other council pet projects and you have the BS budget we now have. Add in an incompetent city manager that is grossly overpaid and what have you got? 1 backup police car and a majority of far left socialists. You voted these weak left brains into office. I have no clue how citizens can be pleased with the results to date.
Hightower interrupted so many times you couldn’t follow. She’s not stupid, even though she appears to be. All she does is complain that her district doesn’t get anything. She has gotten plenty of rezonings that will create new housing, which creates the need for new city services like fire and police. So, instead of interrupting with obnoxious comments like “bring in the National Guard”, Mrs. Hightower, how about funding the police and fire your new constituents are going to need. After all, you have more crime in your district than anyone and are already usurping (look it up in a dictionary) all of the police now! .Council needs to put her in her place.
Hightower is a lot of hot air, always wanting the limelight. Would be nice to get a replacement of her, but she’s in a safe district.
Since the time this guy Floyd initiated the steps toward his death while in police custody back in 2020, local left leaning governmental agencies have decided to defund local police departments and ignore their needs. The Greensboro city council is no exception. And who suffers? Honest law-abiding citizens. Hard working contributing to society citizens. We are indeed in some perilous times in Greensboro and this country. Please don’t be complacent come election time. Vote these hacks out of office.
Once the police cars are received, the turn around time should be a very short time period of two weeks or less. It does take time to mount security cages, radio equipment, wiring for the computers and all the emergency lighting, but one person knowing what they are doing can turn around one car in 5-7 days. Then getting the striping decals on etc, and in two weeks that car should be on the road. (Yes, I speak from experience) If this is not happening, then there are other problems at the garage/shop responsible for this. (And with all the other problems in GSO my guess is this is exactly the issue of short staffing, employees who don’t care or poor supervision/leadership) They should order in advance and have all the needed equipment on hand so when the car arrives they can start on it right away. Having to wait months or even into the next year to get new cars on the road in totally unacceptable. Seems just another snafu of the council and city management with priorities in all the wrong places.
Patton Garage is nothing more than the City Council’s way of moving money from other departments back into their slush fund. Seriously. Someone needs to investigate that racket. If it were a private sector business it would’ve been raided long ago for being organized crime.
Looks like we have to fend for ourselves in emergency situations. LIttle Portland uses the Democrat Playbook.
We always have to fend for ourselves, Miller. Cops are useless.
Especially not Hightower. Anybody that speaks against the PD has serious problems. We need MORE OFFICERS AND more CARS. What is her problem? It’s serious , whatever her problem is.