An Anchorage Assembly member is raising concerns about aging police cars at the Anchorage Police Department, especially in light of this week's announcement of a $30 million budget gap facing city hall next year.
Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew says the city needs to replace many of its cars, and in fact he says the department just got an order of 48 new cars that will be rolling out in the next month.
But Anchorage Assemblyman Paul Honeman worries about future rollouts of new cars to replace the aging ones, especially with the news this week that the city faces a $30 million budget shortfall this year.
Mew says he would never allow a dangerous police car on the street, and that it might actually cost the city more to keep the old ones because of repair costs.
But he says as the city's budget problem becomes clear, he'll get a better idea of whether another order of police cars can come through next year.
"Naturally, if that comes to pass we would take a closer look at it and decide whether we're at that tipping point or not of vehicles being too high mileage," Mew said.
Mew says right now, 37 percent of APD police cars are fully depreciated in value, he says the industry standard is 10 percent.
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