Despite an out-of-town bid that was about $6,000 lower, the city Friday kept its car business local. Early in its meeting, the Board of Public Works and Safety opened sealed quotes for four 2016 police vehicles. The bid from Lakeside Chevrolet, Warsaw, was $101,991.32 with trade-in of the four old police cars, while the bid from Kelley Chevrolet, Fort Wayne, was for a total of $95,800 with trade-ins. Then toward the end of the meeting, Warsaw Police Department Lt. Kip Shuter made a recommendation based on the information provided. “We did seek three quotes from area Chevy dealers. Lakeside and Kelley were the only two that replied within the deadline time. It would be my recommendation that we move ahead with Kelley Chevrolet. Their price is $6,191.32 lower than Lakeside. They’re giving us $10,000 with the trades, compared to Lakeside’s $6,000, and their individual cost per vehicle is $547.83 less than the individual cost for each car from Lakeside,” Shuter said, noting the cost from Kelley was 6 percent less than Lakeside’s. Mayor Joe Thallemer asked if both bids met the specifications, which Shuter said it did. “So, again, here we have a local dealer whose bid is 6 percent higher than the Kelley bid,” Thallemer told the other board members, Jeff Grose and George Clemens. “... Where’s the amount that we consider a local versus a better price for taxpayers? It’s always been a discussion point that we’ve wrestled with.” He said he did know that the Board in the past has approved local bids over other bids that were 4 to 5 percent lower from non-local bidders. “Here we sit at 6 percent. Not an easy decision to make. We always want to give our local businesses the benefit. How do you guys feel about this?” Thallemer asked. Clemens asked about the cars being serviced. Shuter replied that even if they bought the cars from Kelley, they would still be serviced at Lakeside. “It’s not an issue,” he said. Four or five years ago, Thallemer said the city awarded a bid for five vehicles to Kelley Chevrolet because its bid was $20,000 lower than the local bid, which was too large of a difference to ignore. In this case, he said the difference is about $500 per car and $4,000 difference in the trade-in. “It’s 6 percent. Where do you draw that line?” Thallemer asked. Grose commented that the 6 percent “was pretty high.” He said for him it was “close but not close enough.” Thallemer then said, “I think I’d rather err on the side of giving business locally ... That maybe we should go ahead and award it locally.” Shuter said the $6,000 saved by going with Kelley could be used toward equipping the cars. “That’s important to understand,” Thallemer said. “My comment is, how I feel about trying to keep things local here ... we’re really at the tipping point with this. I’d be willing to do whatever you all feel.” Clemens commented that he was “fine either way.” Grose eventually sided with the mayor and suggested they go with the local bid from Lakeside. Grose made a motion to not accept the Kelley bid but to accept the Lakeside quote. The motion was unanimously approved. Before the vote, Clemens added, “You need to remember, too, if my memory serves me correctly, the owners of Lakeside invested heavily in this community. They’ve paid an unbelieveable amount of tax dollars, especially to the county, and the city.” Thallemer told Shuter to get the cars ordered as it would take awhile for them to be delivered. “Several months,” agreed Shuter.
