Arroyo Grande police will not only have new patrol cars soon, but those cars will also have a “new” look.

The new Dodge Chargers that are expected to take to the streets in early October will sport the more traditional law enforcement look of black with white doors, Police Chief Steven Annibali said.

That will soon leave the cities of Grover Beach and Morro Bay with the only all-white police cruisers in San Luis Obispo County.

“There are a host of reasons,” Annibali said of the decision to return to black and white when the new Chargers hit the streets. “We’ll start off with what’s been, in the past, a much more traditional color scheme. Many departments are going back to that.”

Annibali said the black-and-white cars have a “high visibility” and are more easily recognized as police patrol cars — something that will help when several jurisdictions join forces on major incidents.

“If there are other (jurisdictions’) cars in the area and they’re also black and white, it will indicate a larger police presence,” he noted.

He noted that in addition to the cities of Pismo Beach, Guadalupe, San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, Atascadero and, soon, Paso Robles, other agencies that use black-and-white patrol cars are the California Highway Patrol and the sheriff’s departments of both San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

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Although the designs weren’t fully finalized when the plan was approved last week by the Arroyo Grande City Council, the cars will also have new graphics, including American flag emblems and reproductions of the officers’ new badges.

Annibali also expects the new color scheme to have a beneficial financial impact for the city, which goes hand-in-hand with the June decision to lease an entire fleet of new Dodge cars and pickups as well as Honda motorcycles for the department.

Rather than buying a few new cars every few years, selling some off for a low return and keeping a few that

deteriorate further, the city will lease an entire fleet for four years.

At the end of the lease, the cars can be sold — with a year left on their warranties — for a much higher value and a new fleet can be leased.

But the way the new colors and police equipment will be applied will enhance that resale value even more.

Annibali said he ordered all-metallic-black Chargers, and the white doors will not be painted.

Instead, they will be created using a plastic “wrap-around” that can easily be removed when the cars are taken out of service — leaving all-metallic-black Chargers.

In addition, the new standardized, state-of-the-art police equipment will be installed using a “no-holes process,” which again will increase the resale value.

“It will be a lot more marketable car than the old (Ford) Crown Victorias with white doors and holes in them,” Annibali said. “I can easily sell all-black Hemi Chargers to the public.”

In addition to nine Chargers, the city also is leasing two Dodge Dakota crew cab pickups as utility vehicles, six Dodge Avengers as staff and detective cars and two 1,300cc Honda motorcycles for the traffic officers.

Annibali said he hopes to roll out all the new vehicles in one day, likely in the first or second week of October.

September 21, 2008