LOCKPORT

Plan to buy five new cars put on hold

LOCKPORT — The Common Council appears ready to buy five new vehicles, one for each city building inspector.

The $78,392 purchase was withdrawn from Wednesday’s agenda, however, because some aldermen had heard commercials from car dealers offering two-forone deals.

“I think you need to do a little more homework for us,” Council President John Lombardi III told building inspector Jason Dool.

Dool said the prices were taken off state bid contracts after six local dealers couldn’t beat the state’s prices.

The plans call for buying three Ford Escapes at about $15,000 each and two Dodge Chargers at about $17,000 each.

“This isn’t something we got into overnight,” Dool said.

He said that at present, the Building Inspection Department has three vehicles in various stages of disrepair: a 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier, a 1999 Ford Escort wagon and a 2000 Ford Ranger pickup.

“If you look along the wall out here, you’ll see why we have to upgrade our fleet,” Lombardi said.

Dool said two of them were damaged last spring when some roofing material blew off a building next to City Hall. Starting them can be difficult, inspector Clayton Dimmick said. In one vehicle, the gas gauge doesn’t work; one has a missing mirror; another has emissions issues.

“On more than one occasion we got out feeling [light-headed],” Dool said.

He was skeptical of the two-forone offer. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s a 5-liter V-8 that gets 12 or 13 miles per gallon,” Dool said.

Alderman Joseph C. Kibler, Rat Large, questioned where the money for the trucks was going to come from, so the action was put off until Wednesday or Dec. 17.

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