The fully loaded Lincoln Navigator with a gray interior that was rejected by D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown is now the “backup” vehicle for Mayor Vincent Gray, a D.C. Department of Public Works spokeswoman told The Washington Examiner.
Brown said on Tuesday that he has returned a Lincoln Navigator leased at his request for $1,963 a month and promised to “reimburse the city for my share of the use of the vehicle.”
But that was the second Navigator Brown received. The first had a gray interior and didn’t have the 8-inch television monitor Brown had requested for the back seat, according to e-mails obtained by the Washington Post. So Brown sent it back, and then received an SUV with the accoutrements he had asked for.
The Navigator that Brown turned down is now considered Gray’s “backup” vehicle, DPW spokeswoman Linda Grant told The Examiner on Tuesday. Its lease costs the city $1,769 a month. Grant could not immediately say whether the “backup” SUV is used when the mayor doesn’t need it.
Gray’s “primary” vehicle is also a fully loaded Navigator that costs the city $1,941 a month, as first reported by the Washington City Paper.
All three of the Navigators were acquired on one-year leases with the option to renew. Several area car dealers described a one-year lease as the most expensive a car shopper can acquire. Leases are based, in part, on the length of the initial contract and become less expensive the longer contract lasts.
Grant could not immediately say why DPW had chosen to sign one year leases.
District law requires that multiyear contracts be reviewed by the D.C. Council.
A Gray spokeswoman said the mayor’s Navigator was acquired by the police department, “and I can assure you the mayor was not trying to get around bringing anything to the council’s or anyone else’s attention.”
Brown spokeswoman Traci Hughes said the leases for Brown’s Navigatorswere negotiated entirely by DPW. “It certainly wasn’t a matter of the chairman trying to get under the radar,” she said. Hughes added that vehicles with one-year leases front-load the cost of the car and then quickly become less expensive if the option for extra years is taken.
Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells, whose committee oversees DPW, now wants a full rundown of the city’s fleet. He declined to comment through a spokesman, but sent a letter to DPW on Tuesday requesting details on all city leases and District-owned vehicles.
