THE INITIALS OF GARY MAYOR JEROME PRINCE HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM NEW POLICE CRUISERS

City says purchase that Reaves made won’t happen again

Contributed By:The 411 News

What started out as the Prince administration responding to the Gary city council's concerns about the administration's purchase of 18 new vehicles for its general services and police departments has turned into another city hall tug of war with threats of it becoming another case for the courts.

Mayor Prince filed a lawsuit in October 2020 against the city council over its refusal to amend the Gary Community Benefits Agreement that was passed in the last month of the Freeman-Wilson administration. The city council is threatening to sue the mayor for his filling a position not authorized in the city budget.

Council members claim that administration officials were not truthful about the purchases during discussions held at a council Public Safety Committee meeting in February.

At that meeting, Eric Reaves, Gary's Director of Community Investment, said the usual method of purchasing vehicles was sidestepped due to the pandemic and the urgent need to replace old police vehicles.

Instead of using the state's Quantity Purchasing Agreement program, Reaves bought the vehicles from a Porter County Ford dealer. The council was told by Reaves that the QPA was closed when he looked to purchase police cruisers in April, leaving him to purchase vehicles from Bosak Ford since the dealer had them in stock.

Council members' interests in the purchase were likely sparked by concerns of Gary Police Dept. higher ups when they received 8 new Ford Interceptor police cruisers in January.

The vehicles' exterior identification numbers included the letters "JP," the mayor's initials that have since been removed. The cruisers were not equipped with radio communications compatible with those currently in use by the department or with the county's 911 emergency call network.

Since the February meeting, the council found the state QPA program never closed. They learned from Sam Roberts, a Bloomington Ford QPA vendor that several neighboring Lake County municipalities purchased vehicles using the program during the time that Reaves said it was closed.

Roberts said he had often worked with Gary for vehicle purchases and "I was surprised I hadn't heard from them."

Some Ford plants shut down operations at the pandemic start, Roberts said, but they re-opened within 30-60 days.

The city council also claimed the vehicle purchase prices were excessive and their procurement by the Prince administration didn't follow the city's standard procedures for big ticket items. Council discussions have concluded the city likely paid as much as $12,000 more for each of the 8 vehicles delivered to the police department.

Now in the hands of the council's Investigation Committee, GPD Commanders Sarita Titus and Brian Colbert told their history in the ordering of police vehicles at a meeting on Monday, April 5. Both said they had no role in the ordering of the new vehicles.

Colbert said he has worked with the garage maintenance superintendent and fleet manager, "I assisted in the ordering process, specing out the vehicles and contacting vendors."

Titus has been the Information Technology and Network Administrator since 2007. "I have had a long role specing out technology equipment inside the station and in the vehicles," Titus said.

Titus said she responded to Reaves request in September, emailing him what the police department desired in equipment for the vehicles but didn't hear anymore. Colbert said he hasn't had any communications with Reaves.

Both commanders said they had concerns about the order and spoke to department leadership about being left out of the process. Colbert said, "I saw the amount of money being spent was ridiculous and a lot of the equipment being purchased; that wasn't how we outfitted our vehicles."

Colbert said he tried, but couldn't get a return phone call from Reaves.

The purchase price for each police cruiser with accessories of console, lights and radios came to $54,223. Colbert said the police department will have to spend an additional $600 per vehicle for signage.

Police Chief Brian Evans told the committee, "To properly equip our vehicles today, we can do it for less than $43,000."

Gary's Corporation Counsel Rodney Pol said the city's Board of Works approved the purchase order in November 2020. Pol was unsure if 3 sealed bids were presented to the board, required for purchases greater than $75,000.

Included in the purchase order, along with the 8 police cruisers, were five Ford F-150s for the police department and 5 F-250s for general services.

"The city believes this could've been handled in a better way," Atty. Pol said. "Going forward, the administration's position is this will not happen again allowing one individual to spearhead this kind of purchase."

Investigation Committee chair William Godwin said, "We need to know why Public Works allowed this to happen."

Public Works board members and Reaves were asked to attend the meeting, but did not comply.

Councilman Ron Brewer said if they do not show up at the next meeting, he will make a motion to request subpoenas for their attendance. That will require the approval of the Lake Superior Court.

"Eric Reaves should be stripped of every bit of power he has; he's messing up," said Councilwoman Linda Barnes-Caldwell.

Story Posted:04/08/2021