Agenda Index City of Vancouver

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

TO:

Vancouver City Council

FROM:

Chief Constable, General Manager of Engineering Services and
Manager of Purchasing Services

SUBJECT:

Single Source Supply of Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor Vehicles

 

RECOMMENDATION

COUNCIL POLICY

It is Council policy to issue a tender or RFP for contracts in excess of $100,000.

Contracts with a value over $300,000 are referred to Council for approval.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this report is to request authority from Council to designate the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, as the City’s standard “front line” police vehicle until such time an acceptable alternate model is available in the marketplace and as a consequence of this decision, to waive the normal bidding process.

BACKGROUND

The Police fleet is currently, on average, 5.3 years old. However, 42% of the fleet is older than five years and these vehicles account for more than 50% of the operating cost of the fleet. Reducing the average age of the fleet and adopting a single vehicle standard will reduce operating and maintenance costs.

The implementation of the E-COMM Project in 1999 will mean that approximately $20,000 worth of new electronics (radios and mobile computers) will be installed in each fleet vehicle. It would not be cost effective to install this equipment in the older vehicles in he fleet for two reasons; first is the added costs in outfitting, different models and years requiring different equipment and more labour costs, second, many of the older models will be replaced within one year, thereby increasing the costs and downtime.

DISCUSSION

The Police Department has proposed to reduce the overall age of the fleet and to establish a single vehicle standard by purchasing 100 police replacement vehicles suitable for front line work. This represents a one-time purchase that would normally be funded over approximately three years.

Currently, only three manufacturers sell police package vehicle. They are:

(a) The Chevrolet Division of General Motors, producing the Chevrolet Lumina, a mid size, higher repair cost unibody design which will be discontinued after the 1999 model year and replaced with the Chevrolet Impala. Given that standardization of equipment is of significant economic benefit to the City and the untested nature of a new model, General Motors is discounted as a police fleet supplier at this time.

(b) Volvo, producing the police package S/V70 model. No municipality in Western Canada has yet standardized on Volvo although one lower mainland municipality has a unit being demonstrated. While this may be a viable police car in the future, the lack of existing fleets, lack of testing by the Police and the lack of experience with repair cost and downtime do not warrant looking at this vehicle at this time.

(c) Ford Motor Company of Canada, currently the only company in North America producing a full-size, full frame, police package vehicle with proven performance. The full size design provides greater safety for the officers, greater interior space for equipments and fully equipped officers while the frame construction permits lower repair costs and downtime.

Since 1992, the Police Department has exclusively purchased Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptors using conventional tendering procedures. Currently, the newest 91 of 156 full size cars are Ford Crown Victorias.

It is the opinion of Police and Engineering fleet managers that the Ford Crown Victoria is the only police vehicle currently on the market that will meet the operational and safety requirements for “front line” police work. Further, given the past purchase history, the Ford Crown Victoria will provide benefits attributable to equipment standardization which will reduce both maintenance and training costs.

Given this preference of the Police Department, the Manager of Purchasing Services believes it would be inappropriate to seek bids from Chevrolet and Volvo dealers as it would be a foregone conclusion that the contract would be awarded to a dealer supplying Ford Crown Victorias. It is proposed that, rather than issuing a tender to various Ford dealers, staff negotiate directly with Ford Motor Company of Canada to establish the base purchase price for the vehicles and obtain additional benefits such as factory training for mechanics and enhanced parts supply.

Once the base vehicle purchase price and benefits have been agreed upon, the City is required to take delivery of the vehicles through a Ford dealer. To select the dealer, Purchasing Services proposes to issue a request for proposal (RFP) to the local Ford dealers with the contract going to the dealer offering the lowest processing fee and the highest added-value benefits (e.g., pick-up and delivery of cars requiring servicing).

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

The anticipated cost of the 100 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptors is $4,200,000 including purchase price, applicable taxes, dealer delivery and in-house outfitting. The department currently has $1.4 million in funding available for vehicle replacement. Financing for the balance of this purchase (estimated at $2.8 million) would be provided as an advance from the Plant Account to be repaid over the 1999 through 2002 vehicle replacement provisions in the Police Department operating budget on terms acceptable to the Director of Finance. Following this extraordinary purchase the Police Department will resume normal annual replacement.

CONCLUSION

It is felt that the two step process, that is direct negotiations followed by an RFP will enable the City to obtain greater price concessions and benefits than would be available by tendering directly to the dealers.

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