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Canfield council approves major spending on police needs
City uses funds from police levy
By GRAIG GRAZIOSI
CANFIELD
City council approved two significant expenditures for the Canfield Police Department at its first meeting since the passage of a five-year, 3.9-mill police levy generating $750,000 annually.
The council members approved the purchase of a new police radio system at a discounted rate from Motorola. The radios would replace a nearly 20-year-old system.
Police chief Chuck Colucci said the radios are a “significant” need, and one of the central spending priorities advertised as a part of the police levy.
Colucci said two of his radios are broken, and there is another $5,000 worth of work needed to repair the system.
The radios the city intends to purchase would be compatible with those of the Austintown and Boardman police departments as well as the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office.
The new radios would also allow the Canfield police to encrypt signals if it chooses to, preventing both criminal elements and the general public from listening to police communications.
Motorola is running a 40 percent discount on its police radio systems as a result of overproduction in anticipation for the Republican National Convention in July, Warino said.
In order to receive the discount from Motorola, the city would have to make the purchase before Dec. 31.
The new radios would cost $134,816 with the discount, an estimated $26,184 savings off the original price of $161,000.
Certain items included in the purchase of the radio system are not Motorola-made and therefore do not receive the price break.
Warino suggested the city use money generated by the police levy to purchase the radios through a financing option with Motorola.
Motorola’s financing options have a maximum term of five years with interest rates between 4.07 percent and 4.7 percent with no penalties for an early payoff, said Christine Clayton, city finance director.
The council members also approved the use of $30,000 from the city’s general services fund – normally used for building upkeep and unexpected maintenance costs – for the purchase of a new backup generator for the police department.
The generator provides emergency power in the event of an outage to the police department’s phones, radios and the 911 dispatch center which services the city of Canfield as well as Ellsworth and Berlin townships.
According to Colucci, the current generator has a blown head gasket and is unreliable.
Warino said the installation cost of the new generator was estimated at $26,000. The new generator would be of comparable size and power output to the current generator.