Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office frustrated over vehicle directive

It was a heated debate Tuesday morning at the Dona Ana County Commissioners meeting over whether or not the sheriff’s office could use private vendors to maintain its vehicle fleet.

County Manager Julia Brown sent all departments including the sheriffs office a directive last week, ordering them to only go through the county when needing repairs.

Members of the business community expressed concern over the prospect of lost revenue from the sheriffs office. The sheriff has used dozens of private vendors throughout Las Cruces to maintain their fleet for years. But now the county manager has brought that practice to a sudden halt.

The sheriffs fleet supervisor said he feared county mechanics wouldn’t repair their vehicles in a timely and costly manner.

We had a lot of issues as far as quality of work misdiagnosis that the county had done under county fleet,” DASO Fleet Supervisor Nick Aragon said.

Aragon also worried about safety, although the county’s fleet manager assured that all vehicles are properly maintained.

“We look at tires brakes lights anything that we see wrong with the vehicle,” County Fleet Manager Gabe Silva said.

It was never resolved whether the county or private sector would best serve the taxpayers. The county said the directive comes with leeway.

“The directive does limit does direct all county vehicles be taken to fleet. It does allow however the fleet department to go outside should they need to go out for any reason,” Assistant County Manager Chuck McMahon said.

Only the sheriffs office was able to provide cost differences. The fleet manager said he’d have the county’s data available in two weeks.