By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — Miami County commissioners donated a SWAT vehicle to the Darke County Sheriff’s Department. Commissioners Matt Aultman, Marshall Combs, and Larry Holmes were present.

“The Miami County Sheriff’s Office for quite a few years has possessed an armored rescue vehicle and assisted Darke County when needed,” Sheriff Mark Whitaker said. “It is an armored vehicle that was used by their SWAT team, and we would usually have to call that unit over to assist us if we were in a critical or high risk incident where an armed person had somebody hostage.”

The armored vehicle allows officers to get close to an armed individual while protecting law enforcement officers and even extract hostages without the potential risk of being shot. Miami County Board of Commissioners happened to purchase a new rescue vehicle for their office, so they are offering the title for their 1984 Dodge W-Series Armored Vehicle to the Board of Darke County Commissioners and Darke County Sheriff at no cost.

“It is still an operational unit, it runs, and was rebuilt several years ago, and Miami County Commissioners offered it to Darke County for nothing because our teams have a partnership with each other,” Sheriff Whitaker said.

Sheriff Whitaker said they would like to gladly accept the vehicle to better uphold the safety of the public by not having to call mutual aid, as they will have a vehicle available to them and will be able to respond a lot quicker. They are very thankful to Miami County for being gracious with their donation.

“We very much appreciate the donation,” Holmes said. “It is nice to have if an event does come up, so we do thank the board for that. We are just very appreciative.”

The only cost the department will have to face will be the usual maintenance and upkeep, so Miami County is allowing the county to save money to be utilized elsewhere like in uniforms. The commissioners also approved an appropriation for $1,000 to be used for the purchase of uniforms for the Darke County Sheriff.

Bids for the Darke County Garst Government Center Parking Lot project were accepted for review. The new parking lot will allow for additional parking in the future with storm drainage, curbing, asphalt, sub-base, excavation, grading, and other miscellaneous work. The engineer’s estimate was $110,000.

Three bids total were received and accepted for review: Coate Construction, LLC, West Milton, had a base bid of $137,981; Flora Excavating, Inc., Bradford, had a base bid of $105,446.10; and M&T Excavating, Bradford, had a base bid of $119,192.

Once the engineer reviews the bids, a company will be awarded at a future meeting.

The Darke County Commissioners meet at 520 S Broadway in the Administration Building. They hold a Regular Session meeting every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:30 that is open and welcome to the public.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].