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Police van carries $16,000 TV contract

Executive Council okays $67,000 in extra devices

By LAUREN R. DORGAN

Concord Monitor (New Hampshire)

December 5, 2008

A [New Hampshire] state official yesterday defended $67,000 worth of upgrades to a mobile command van built for sobriety checkpoints, saying that a $5,800 television, a $17,000 heat-seeking camera and a $16,000 satellite television contract were all valid additions.

"Far from representing an extravagance, these items will be a valuable additional resource to the unit, and the unit is an important and welcome addition to New Hampshire's law enforcement," said Liquor Commissioner Mark Bodi. The unit, originally touted as a command center for drunken or impaired driving checkpoints, can double as an emergency operations center, he said.

The van cost just more than $420,000, paid in full by a $450,000 federal grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and disbursed through the state Highway Safety Agency. Under the original specifications for the van, the contractor, Nomad, submitted a $355,000 bid. Later, Liquor Commission officials amended the deal to add $67,000 in extra equipment and other changes, including the television and other high-tech items.

Yesterday, the Executive Council retroactively approved the changes to the contract, after Administrative Services Commissioner Linda Hodgdon raised concerns over the process. Hodgdon could not be reached for comment late yesterday afternoon.

In a letter to councilors, Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch recommended that the council grant the retroactive approval "in order to insure the State receives full federal reimbursement" for the $420,000 spent on the van.

Asked about the matter, Gov. John Lynch said that he believes the commissioners "were and are well-intentioned with what they're trying to do" but that the process had been misunderstood.

The van is laid out to include breath-testing equipment, two holding cells and a bathroom. A task force of state and local police officers helped design the vehicle, Bodi said.

In February, when the Liquor Commission first sought council approval for the van, Bodi and fellow commissioner Patricia Russell wrote that the van would be a tool for state and local law enforcement officials and that it would provide "a safe location on site to process drivers impaired from alcohol and/or drugs." Bodi wrote that the van would also be used to educate people about the dangers of driving while impaired.

Now, the van is in storage, Bodi said, but it has been used at a sobriety checkpoint and on a public information tour of the North Country.

The additions included a variety of high-tech services: $4,500 for Verizon broadband access, a three-line cell phone plan for about $9,000 and $2,600 for an XM satellite radio "Fisherman" package, featuring weather warnings, forecasts and high-tech weather maps. The additions also involved upgrades to some services included in the original plan: $550 to upgrade a six-line, 16-extension Panasonic phone system and $550 to upgrade the model of a Garmin GPS device.

Bodi took issue with the way some of the additions had been characterized. The contract lists a "42-inch television" for $5,800, topped with an interactive panel called a SMART Board for $3,250.

But Bodi said that while a television is the "vernacular" for the screen, it has greater capabilities than what's found in a typical living room. It has a "sophisticated briefing screen," which allows for the storage of information that could be useful as evidence in court, he said.

"Any representation that this is a television screen, or that this is simply a television screen, misrepresents the facts and underplays the important role that this plays in assisting law enforcement," he said.

The contract changes also included a $1,200 satellite television antenna and a $16,000 DIRECTV subscription that, Bodi said, will allow officers to watch news and weather channels in remote parts of the state while traveling. The subscription includes CNN and the Weather Channel as well as the Game Show Network and the Travel Channel. Bodi said those extra channels were part of a package deal.

The outlays also included $3,000 in travel expenses, which Liquor Commission Deputy Chief Scott Dunn, who managed the project, explained as being necessary to send two additional state workers on a trip to the manufacturer's facility to inspect the vehicle and train on how to use it. The original contract called for two state workers to make such a trip.

In the original proposal for the van, state officials wrote that sobriety checkpoints "are one of the most effective tools for law enforcement in their efforts to deter impaired driving." In 2007, 39 people died in alcohol-related car accidents in New Hampshire.