YOUNGSTOWN — Four months after rejecting legislation to purchase new police vehicles, city council changed course and voted to buy them.

Council voted 5-2 Wednesday on legislation to spend up to $205,000 to purchase three vehicles for its K-9 officers and 6-1 on a separate ordinance to buy five vehicles for its patrol unit at a cost not to exceed $335,000.

Councilman Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd Ward, a former Youngstown police chief and chairman of council’s safety committee, voted against both proposals saying his requests to meet with the administration to discuss police vehicle management have been ignored.

Councilwoman Anita Davis, D-6th Ward, a former Youngstown police detective sergeant and chairwoman of council’s finance committee, voted against the purchase of the K-9 vehicles.

Davis said she voted for the patrol unit vehicles after seeing that it was going to pass regardless of her opposition.

Davis said her main concerns are about take-home vehicles at the police department and the lack of accountability regarding the policy, including not having GPS in the cars.

Davis did get assurance from police Chief Carl Davis that the vehicles being purchased would be used for their intended purposes.

Council rejected June 18 by a 4-2 vote the purchase of these eight vehicles as well as three for the crime lab. The request for the 11 vehicles was first made April 16. It was referred to council’s safety committee, which had two meetings to discuss it, and then brought to council floor, where it was defeated.

Detective Sgt. Sean Carfolo, the police department’s fiscal officer, said it will be about nine months before the eight vehicles arrive because of the time it takes to install the equipment in the vehicles.

The last of five police vehicles purchased last November for the department recently arrived, he said.

Also Wednesday, council voted 7-0 to allow the board of control to increase the amount allocated for improvement work to city hall’s second floor from $290,000, approved March 19, to up to $395,000.

The plan is to renovate the former clerk of courts space left empty in city hall seven years ago into new offices for the community planning and economic development department.

When bids for the project were opened June 13, the low bid of $380,500 was submitted by Brock Builders of North Lima. There was only one other bid on the project.

Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works, said: “As we were going through the planning process and design of the project, we had cut some stuff out to try to bring the budget down and we were really hoping that we were going to get a lower number on this. Frankly, I think the bid environment when we bid this, we were bidding a lot of projects for the city. The area in general was bidding a lot of projects and it led to a process where it was kind of a buyer’s market I guess. In other words, there’s not a lot of competition with the bids so sometimes these bids go a little higher.”

Shasho said the project cannot be cut any further.

“It’s pretty much a bare renovation of an open space,” he said. “Considering the amount of area that it is, we’re under $400,000. I don’t think we can do this any cheaper.”

The project will include some partial demolition, new finishes, drywall, electrical upgrades, improvements to the heating and cooling system, plumbing work, the addition of a bathroom and some individual offices, Shasho said.

“It’s a pretty basic construction project and the price reflects that,” he said. “This isn’t a $1 million project or anything crazy where we’re changing egress. In today’s construction market, it’s a pretty basic project. I don’t think we could do this project any cheaper.”

The work will begin in November or December and take about six months to finish, Shasho said.

The space, which is about 4,000 square feet, has been empty since the clerk of courts moved from there in 2018 to the city hall annex, 9 W. Front St., as part of the relocation of the city court system.

City officials have informally talked for years about what to do with the space before deciding last year to allow the community planning and economic development department to use it.

The department’s office on the fourth floor in the former city prosecutor’s office is about half the size of the space on the second floor.

After the municipal court moved to the annex, a block away from city hall at 26 S. Phelps St., the city had work done on the former courtrooms, also located on the second floor, for the police department.