City Council Approves New Computers For Police Cruisers

The Mentor City Council approved the purchase of new mounted laptops for all the police department's cruisers during a meeting Tuesday night at .

The city will buy 28 computers -- 25 for cruisers, two as replacements in case one of them breaks and one specifically for testing.

This will cost $2,832 per cruiser, according to the passed legislation. About $2,000 of that is the cost of a Getac S400 semrugged notebook and its warranty. The rest is for mounting hardware and installation.

The police department will use forfeitted drug money to buy the computes, Mentor Police Chief Daniel Llewellyn said.

The cruiser computers were last replaced in 2005. Llewellyn said the old models no longer had sufficient computing capacity and were incompatible with the new radio software.

Also at the Council meeting:

• Cub Scout Pack 75 donated bat boxes, which are artificial habitats for brown bats, to the city of Mentor.

The brown bats, in turn, provide a service by eating mosquitos.

Each box can provide a living space for up to 50 bats. They will be put in and .

• Council .
• Council .