Atlantic City council members can no longer use the infamous city-owned cars as their necessity and cost are being questioned. The council passed the resolution unanimously last Wednesday night, following Council President Marty Smalls' amendment, completely pushing through council members being banned of using council vehicles.
According to Press of Atlantic City, a new policy has been voted upon the council wherein council members would have limited use of the cars solely for business purposes. The cars would also have to stay at City Hall and council members need to sign them out as well as record their mileage.
As for the vehicles, Small stated that they can be redirected, auctioned or donated to a youth charity, said Star Tribune. It was in 2012 when these controversial cars were questioned by the Local Government Services Division's former director Tom Neff and some state lawmakers as to why the city spent more than $63,000 on buying three of them.
"We put forth the strongest policy on record to date, but upon further review I wanted to take it a step further and just ban the council cars," Small said. He added that the whole thing has been so much controversy and that his office understands that people are already hurting.
It was through Senate President Stephen Sweeney that the issue was recently brought up once more. ABC News reported that Sweeney made the council cars as an example of wasteful spending when she advocated for a bill last month that would make the state takeover the city's finances.
The council adopted an ordinance too that clarifies the code regulating the city's parking facilities because most of the rules are already outdated and have not been updated since 1998. It includes making rate signs bigger and requiring them to be in easily seen locations.
