The Montgomery City Council is considering terminating a $1.45 million contract with a private Louisiana company to handle some accident investigations.
1819 News reported on some of the unusual circumstances surrounding the approved, sole-source contract in February.
TrafficServe is a startup civilian accident investigation company that proposed to handle 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.
The City’s cost for the services was $1.45 million for the first year of the contract, under the proposal. By comparison, a new trained and certified Montgomery County Sheriff’s deputy, including salary and benefits, would’ve cost only $100,000 each annually, according to Montgomery County Commission chairman Doug Singleton.
Marcus Toussaint, co-founder and CEO of TrafficServe, said at the meeting on Tuesday, “I noticed that this item was on your agenda for today. I am the CEO and founder of this company. I have not had any communications with the city up to this point, I think out of respect for the council’s process.”
“I haven’t had the opportunity to address or remedy any concerns that the city might have with the contract, so I am respectfully asking for time to have that conversation or to have some insight as to the deliberations that has caused this particular item to be on the agenda today,” Toussaint said.
Montgomery City Council President Cornelius Calhoun said on Tuesday the 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.
“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.”
According to Montgomery Police Chief James Graboys, Montgomery is the first city where TrafficServe would operate.
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