Mayor, council battle over SUVs - WICU12/WSEE Erie, PA News, Sports, Weather and Events

Last September, Mayor Mike Bell (I) and members of city council battled over the purchase of two sports utility vehicles. 

Well, those SUVs are in the news again as the Bell Administration tries to solve a problem.

It appeared to some on council that the mayor was correcting a mistake.  But Mayor Bell says he's actually correcting one of *council's* mistakes.

Council did not appreciate  the mayor buying SUVs. when they thought he was going to buy street maintenance equipment.  

D. Michael Collins led the charge against the mayor's purchase.  He told 13abc's Bill Hormann,
"(The administration) said they were going to buy a supervisor's car and they bought a Tahoe.  And they said they were going to buy a street sweeper and they bought a Terrain."

Collins asked the state auditor to look into the legality of the purchase of the Tahoe... and Terrain.

The mayor told reporter Bill Hormann in September, and said again today, he honored the spirit of the ordinance.  Said the mayor,  "We could have probably written that clearer.  But we do not believe at all that we did anything inappropriate."

But now the mayor wants council approval a switch of $437,000 dollars from the general fund into the account that buys vehicles.  Patrick McLean, he director of finance, says that transfer is necessary.  "Capital Replacement fund is something that's been used to purchase other general fund vehicles in the past, police vehicles being a perfect case and point."

Some on council saw that new request to transfer monies into the Capital Replacement budget and thought the mayor was correcting his mistake.  Councilman George Sarantou (R) called it  "a clean up operation."

Sarantou was surprised because, in the past, the mayor refused to admit he made a mistake.
 
"At the time," Sarantou told 13abc, "the administration said this was no big deal."

But the mayor says the *real problem* is council bought 32-police cars in 2004 and didn't have the money to do it.

*That's* the mistake the Bell administration says it is correcting by transferring the money.

Mayor Bell says, "We took what council was saying seriously enough to go back and look at it and this is what we were able to find from that and we have the ability to fix it."

The ability to fix it in part because the city's budget is in better shape.

So, where will the $437,000 transfer come from?

The Bell administration assures council there will be additional savings when we close out the 2012 budget and those monies will cover that move to pay for police cars that weren't properly accounted for eight years ago.