“Why would we purchase a vehicle or pay for a vehicle that belongs to another person.”
City Commissioner Lisa Knight does not support a $700-a-month vehicle allowance Mayor David LaGrand can use to buy and maintain a car
“When we have vehicles that can be used right here in the city.”
But city manager Mark Washington says its city policy to provide a vehicle for mayors to use for business and personal transportation. And collecting a vehicle allowance is the mayor’s choice
“His personal use was not to have an assigned medium-priced automobile from the city but to have his own choice of a vehicle by use of allowance.”
Mayor LaGrand says receiving an allowance or driving a vehicle leased by the city are in his mind about equal.
“This is choosing something from column A or something from column B, which are essentially equivalent.”
Manager Washington says the 700 dollar a month allowance is actually less than the estimated cost to lease a car for the mayor.
“We came up to about $770 so this amount is about 10 percent less than our benchmark.”
