Barry Lane, left, and Mike Jarnagin of Patriot Fence Co. work to erect a fence around a parking lot for police cars off East 11th Street. Many police officers have said they will park their patrol cars rather than pay a charge to take them home overnight.Chattanooga police are expected to park their patrol cruisers today before they head home.
But no one is exactly sure where to park.
"There's been nothing but 'Thursday you've got to park,'" said Detective Phil Grubb, president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers Local 673.
The city administration has informed officers who want to drive their patrol cars back and forth to work that, if they live in the city, they must pay 20 cents a mile and 30 cents a mile if they live outside city limits.
Ninety-one of the city's 351 police officers who have take-home cars said they would pay, city records show. The remaining 260 will park their cars, and the city administration is scrambling because there's not enough room for the vehicles at the Police Services Center on Amnicola Highway.
Paul Page, the city's director of general services, said that, in addition to the lot on Amnicola, the city also will provide parking for officers at a lot on 11th Street behind the old Farmer's Market and on Main Street near Armando's.
But Grubb said the lot on 11th Street needs fencing before police officers feel comfortable parking there.
"I've heard nobody is going to park their car (at 11th Street) unless that fence is up," he said.
Page said he was confident the fences would be erected. He said there would be six-foot fences with barbed wire on top, cameras installed and keycards required to get into the lot.
The cost of putting up the fences, cameras and keycards would be about $20,000, he said.
Mike Jarnagin, left, and Barry Lane of Patriot Fence Co. work Wednesday afternoon to erect a fence around a lot that will be used for parking police cars on Peeples Street near the old Farmers Market.Richard Beeland, spokesman for Mayor Ron Littlefield, said Wednesday that police Chief Bobby Dodd still was assigning parking spots and the list would be ironed out by this morning.
"That will be between the chief and his section leaders," Beeland said.
Chief Dodd could not be reached for comment.
All this comes as the City Council has directed the administration to come up with figures on how to let officers who live in the city keep their take-home cars.
Littlefield said Wednesday he would be happy to bring an alternate proposal to the council -- if there is one.
"I don't see what we can cut to make it work, but we'll look," he said.
The mayor is expected to discuss other proposals next Tuesday at the City Council meeting.
One proposal is that police officers who live outside Chattanooga could keep their cars as long as they paid mileage up to the city limits. Littlefield said he was not confident the city could find money to pay for those officers, since 58 percent of the police force lives outside Chattanooga.
Council members said they would be interested in trying to find the money to pay for the take-home cars if the administration cannot.
City officials warned two weeks ago that playing with the city's budget now could cause potential problems with credit rating companies.
Councilwoman Carol Berz, chairwoman of the panel's Budget, Finance and Personnel Committee, said she did not believe that, saying city budgets are fluid and played with all the time.
Chief Financial Officer Daisy Madison could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Berz said she thinks whatever Littlefield proposes next Tuesday will fix things for police officers. If not, the council will handle it, she said.
WHAT'S NEXTCity police officers are expected to turn in their patrol cars today beginning with the first shift, which is from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., city officials said.
"I'm confident the mayor's going to do the best job possible, and we'll take it from there," she said.
Councilwoman Pam Ladd, though, was not so sure. On Tuesday, Ladd voted against the resolution directing the mayor's office to come up with new recommendations.
She said her reason for voting against it was simple -- the mayor already has given a recommendation.
"We might get a response back we like less than this one," she said.
Contact Cliff Hightower at chightower@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/CliffHightower.