Meeting: City Council

Meeting Time: April 09, 2024 at 6:00pm PDT
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Agenda Item

3.17. Authorize purchase of nine vehicles from the National Auto Fleet Group for the Orange Police, Public Works, and Community Services Departments using a Cooperative Purchasing Agreement.

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    Guest User 8 months ago

    I did not see any mention in the staff report of evaluating switching to EV vehicles. Given the city's goals to have a safe and fiscally healthy community, assessing the overall cost of EV to the community in terms of cleaner air and zero emissions and also the overall cost of ownership of EV versus gas powered vehicles. If this assessment has not already done, I strongly urge the city to take the step to analyze the EV option. Given the expenditure and the length of the commitment, it seems right to do this analysis now.

    CERT put out an article "Are municipal electric vehicle fleets a worthwhile investment?" - https://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org/story/are-municipal-electric-vehicle-fleets-worthwhile-investment that highlighted four cities that made the switch. Their conclusion was "Connexus Energy found that incorporating EVs would decrease Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and reduce CO₂ emissions and overall petroleum fuel use, providing strong evidence to support EV inclusion in city fleets!"
    I suspect there will be resources from the Orange Sustainability Group that would be willing to assist or even own the analysis so the busy staff doesn't need to do the heavy lifting.

    Please take the time to do this for the health of our community and planet.

    I will close with a quote from the Albuquerque NM Mayor Tim Keller while announcing his city’s first purchase of EVs for the municipal fleet. "We can’t afford to wait for someone else to take the kind of bold action on climate change we need to protect our community, Any realistic effort to fight climate change has to include steps to reduce the impact of vehicles on our air quality and public health…and the time has come to turn the page on gas-powered cars and trucks.”

    Regards,
    Suzanne Tani,
    City of Orange resident since 1994