Debates over take home police cars in Summerdale came to a conclusion Thursday when the council decided to continue to allow police officers to take their town cars home.

There are only five officers on Summerdale’s police force and two of the five are considered supervisors so the debates only dealt with three vehicles. Summerdale police officers have had take home cars for at least 20 years, according to police chief Dwain Reibeling who has been with the Summerdale Police Department for slightly longer than 20 years.

The decision to stop allowing officers to take cars home was made in October of last year by the council. The town’s policy on take-home cars was changed to only include supervisors and three police cruisers were supposed to be parked at town hall when the officers were not on duty beginning Jan. 1 of this year.

However, the town council decided after further discussion with Summerdale Police Chief Dwain Riebeling to reconsider the decision to take the cars away at a special work session to deal with any police business.

The work session was attended by all of the council members and representatives from the police department.

Riebeling began the meeting by presenting the council with research he had accumulated in support of police departments having take-home vehicles. One of the reasons he brought up was take home cars allows the town more effective coverage and crime prevention by having more officers in cars on duty and traveling to and from work and claimed visibility of police cars increases public safety and gives the citizens a sense of value for tax dollars.

Summerdale Mayor David Wilson did not believe the argument for increased visibility was a sound argument because most of the officers do not reside in Summerdale.

“The cars aren’t parked in Summerdale, so that one there doesn’t really apply,” he said.

Riebeling also presented data from studies, which found when the officers were allowed to take home their cars the maintenance was cut in half or more, the vehicle was maintained with pride which actually enhances the town’s image and the self respect of the police force.

“On all studies I could find, on a take-home car, the maintenance is less than it is on cars that are left for more than one person to drive. When they have a take-home car they are more subjected to keeping it up and if you have more than one person in the car you have more maintenance on it,” he said.

Supervisor Quentin Bettner also informed the town council of an added benefit the town gets by letting the officers take the cars home. The police officers do most of the maintenance on the vehicles when they are off the clock.

“Something that I don’t know if everybody is aware of, on maintenance, the majority of the tires and oil changes are done on their off days. That is not something they are getting paid by the hour for. That is not something that is costing the town any money on an hourly rate. If they leave the cars here you are going to be paying hourly for the officers sitting in line at the Express Lube. We do that on our off days because that is a privilege, it is a benefit of the car so we do that on our off time,” he said.

Riebeling also expressed concern for all of the expensive equipment kept in the vehicles. He claimed if the officers were not able to take their cars home the equipment would be damaged pulling it in and out of the vehicles.

Riebeling also presented data to the council, which included the miles from the police department door to the officers’ homes and the distance the officer’s homes are located from town limits.

“Most all of them are going to Robertsdale, so I put how many miles it would take every month since the officers work about 15 days a month. I took the miles and I put it times 30. The furthest an officer lives from town hall is 9.1 miles. 273 miles to and from work total each month for the officer who lives the furthest away,” he said.

Riebeling’s calculations claim the town is spending less than $100 a month for the three officers to drive their vehicles home from the city limits of the town in terms of gasoline. He used $2.70 as the price of each gallon of gas. The town had previously done its own calculations and included the cost of wear and tear on the vehicle for a total monthly cost of nearly $400.

Riebeling also did some research into the policies neighboring municipalities have in place in regards to take-home vehicles.

According to Riebeling’s research, Elberta has basically taken out the take home cars but they come back to where on the days they are on, they drive their personal car in, pick up their cruiser, and take their cruiser home until their next shift. They were also given a $1 per hour increase to offset the time they would have to drive their vehicle in and leaving their car at the police department on their off days.

He also told the council Silverhill allows police officers to drive up to 15 miles from the city limits. In Robertsdale, only supervisors and investigators have take home cars. In Foley only supervisors and investigators have take-home cars. In Loxley, their policy says that they don’t take them home but they consider all officers to be on call and subject to be called in for duty so therefore all of them have take home cars. Fairhope has take-home cars as long as they live within the county. Bay Minette’s limit is currently 10 miles away from the city limits.    

suggestion to the council was to allow the officers to take the vehicles home.

“It is a good argument for some of it, but some of it doesn’t apply to us. The total cost would be around $700 a month [for all five police cruisers to be taken home.] $700 will not break this town. The cost benefit would be basically eliminated if you take the maintenance into account since they do the maintenance on their own time. That is the only selling factor I see to it, other than it is a benefit to the officer driving the car. As far as the dollar benefits, there aren’t any,” he said.

The town council also expressed concern the police cruisers were being used when the officers were off duty for business not related to the town. Since the decision was made to let the officers keep the vehicles, the town council requested unofficial use of the vehicles is discontinued.