LR OKs loan for police cars, fire gear, tech

Little Rock will purchase new police vehicles and firefighter equipment and make technology upgrades with money from a five-year loan approved Tuesday by the city Board of Directors.

A $4.5 million loan to be paid back from 2017 through 2022 will pay for breathing apparatuses for firefighters, $1 million worth of police vehicles, $500,000 for other vehicles and equipment, a fire-suppression system to protect the city's primary data center, communication-fiber upgrades and new permitting software.

City directors didn't discuss the short-term note before their unanimous vote Tuesday but had discussed the loan at previous meetings.

Annual debt payments on the loan are estimated to be similar to annual payments being made on a 2011 short-term note that will expire this year. Those payments have been $968,858.55 each year.

The 2011 loan was for $4.6 million. The city will have paid $244,292.77 in interest, similar to what the city expects to pay on the new loan.

Fire Chief Gregory Summers called the purchase of new breathing apparatuses a "proactive" move. The equipment will replace the department's 2002 models with 2013 models. It's likely that the department won't be able to upgrade the older models in coming years as parts are discontinued, Summers said.

The department will look into donating the 2002 models to volunteer fire departments that don't have steady funding.

A self-contained breathing apparatus is what a firefighter puts on before going into a burning building to limit exposure to carcinogens that are in the fire.

The 2016 loan also will give $1.5 million to the Fleet Services Department -- $1 million of which City Manager Bruce Moore has designated for police vehicle replacements.

Little Rock has been working toward replacing outdated vehicles since voters approved a sales-tax increase in 2011. It has purchased 228 since then.

The city's private police union hired an outside consultant last year to evaluate the Fleet Services Department and issued a report that said there were inefficiencies in the agency. Members of the police union also complained about the upkeep and condition of police vehicles, with one union leader calling some of the patrol cars "deathtraps."

After seeing the report, Moore said he was committed to replacing police vehicles.

The remaining funding from the loan will purchase the permitting software, the fire-suppression system to protect the city's main data center and the fiber upgrades.

The software will allow permits to be issued faster and enable inspectors to access permit and inspection information in the field, Planning and Development Director Tony Bozynski said.

The fire-suppression system will replace an outdated system. The fiber upgrades will replace copper utility lines and connect the northwest police patrol division and the special investigation division to the city's fiber network.

Each division now operates on a less-efficient data system that "makes it hard to push security patches and allow them to share video with [police] headquarters," city spokesman Jennifer Godwin said.

This is the first of two short-term loans the city plans to take out this year. Moore told the board that he expects to request approval of another loan toward the end of the year for $3 million to fund the construction of a fire station in southwest Little Rock.

Metro on 04/20/2016

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