The City of Montgomery paid $243,530 to a Louisiana private security company on March 10, despite the Montgomery City Council considering terminating the contract at a recent meeting.
According to Montgomery’s open finance portal, the city paid $243,530 to Government Services Company LLC, or TrafficServe, for “traffic accident response” on March 10. A contract between the city and TrafficServe was signed by multiple members of the Mayor Steven Reed administration in October.
TrafficServe is a civilian accident investigation startup that proposed handling minor accidents in place of Montgomery Police officers. The company would provide three cars for civilian traffic accident investigators and two additional employees for eight hours a day, five days a week.
Under the plan, civilian investigators would write up accident reports for minor accidents during that time and handle light traffic duties. According to Montgomery Police Chief James Graboys, Montgomery is the first city where TrafficServe would operate. There is no information about the company online besides news articles about their contract with Montgomery.
Graboys had previously told the city council in October about the contract that “nothing gets paid until they’re up and running and they’re doing what they need to.”
The contract was awarded by the city through a sole-source process despite multiple other companies with more experience and lower prices. The Montgomery City Council is considering terminating the contract.
Montgomery City Council President Cornelius Calhoun said on Tuesday that a resolution authorizing termination of the contract would be carried over until the council’s next meeting in two weeks, but that council members had concerns about the contract not being bid out.
Calhoun also said the company wasn’t yet set up to operate in Montgomery.
“I’m not going to suspend the rules on this item so we can have the discussion as we move forward. From my standpoint, I’m just going to say what we’re thinking from what I’ve heard with this coming up. You’re not set up at this point to start doing the business,” Calhoun said at the meeting on Tuesday. “You’re about a year out and some of the concerns that I heard from the council members is that this wasn’t bidded. Some of the calls coming in were saying this wasn’t on the open market to be bidded. Those are some of the questions.”
Marcus Toussaint is the co-founder and CEO of TrafficServe. Former Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins is also apparently involved in the company, according to emails between Montgomery officials and TrafficServe about the contract.
Reed told the city council in October that TrafficServe would allow “officers to really be focused on getting more bad guys off our streets and really be more focused on following up on those things, and it improves our customer response to our citizens who are really our customers here, and we want to make sure that we improve that any way that we can.”
“This is one of those innovative ideas. We’re one of the first cities, but there are several other cities that have already reached out to me about our involvement with them because they’re looking at bringing them online as well,” Reed said in October.
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