Council Buys Unusual Plan to Lease Cars : Law enforcement: The Police Department wants to put almost two dozen 1993 patrol cars in storage, rather than wait for the 1994 model, which has a passenger-side air bag that could smash an on-board computer.

West Covina police brought an unusual request before the City Council last week: Let us save money by leasing 21 new patrol cars, worth more than $400,000, and parking them in a garage for a year.

To do that, the city would need to spend $15,000 in storage fees and $21,000 in lease payments while the cars await use.

Huh?

“When we first saw this rising out of the Police Department, we thought, ‘What is this?’ ” said Assistant City Manager Steve Wylie. “It didn’t appear to be a great idea.”

But now it does.

And the council agreed during its regular meeting Tuesday night, when it gave police the OK to order the cars.

Police said they need to lease the 1993 Ford Crown Victoria, which has a driver- side air bag. Next year’s model will include a passenger-side air bag that, if deployed, could smash a new computer set below the dash and between the front seats of each patrol car.

Police said the city has spent about $650,000 on installation of the car computers, which put officers on-line with the department’s main computer.

“If both air bags are deployed, they will basically fill the whole front compartment and the passenger’s bag will launch our computer into the face of the driver,” said West Covina Police Lt. Ross Heaton, adding that it would cost thousands of dollars to redesign the mounting system for the computers.

Heaton said the department would phase in a redesign of the computer mount for the day when dual air bags become mandatory. Federal safety regulations require that all passenger cars have dual front-seat air bags by 1997.

Police say the proposed lease won’t lose money. Among other reasons, they said, the 1994 Crown Victoria will cost $2,000 more than this year’s model.

At their regular meeting Tuesday night, council members voted to allow the Police Department to order the 21 Crown Victorias for a four-year lease, as well as nine more in a three-year lease that will cost about $176,000 and be used immediately by police.