Gregg County, city of Longview aim to buy new mobile command vehicle

Longview News-Journal
By Yoleyne Romero, yromero@news-journal.com
Oct 31, 2022

Gregg County plans to use federal relief funds to pay for a new mobile command vehicle in partnership with the city of Longview.

County commissioners this past week approved using $800,000 in relief funding for a vehicle with a cost not to exceed $1.6 million. The county would pay half of the remaining $800,000 with the city also contributing $400,000.

Gregg County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Craig Harrington said the purchase still requires Longview City Council approval, and the council will consider the request at its Thursday meeting.

According to Harrington, the current command vehicle is utilized by several local entities, including the Longview police and fire departments, sheriff's office and county emergency management. He added the vehicle serves many purposes other than law enforcement, including being used in wildfire situations and other emergencies.

The almost 20-year-old vehicle set to be replaced can still be used but is operating outside of its designed capabilities and has reached its end of life, he said.

"Not only is it outdated, we're running into maintenance issues, parts availability issues and its inability to be retrofitted with modern technology," Harrington said. 

The current command vehicle was retrofitted as a command truck on an RV chassis, he said. The new vehicle will be designed from the ground up as a command vehicle on a large chassis and will have two mobile conference rooms, exterior command capabilities and 100% wireless network connectivity, he said.

"It's a mobile operations center — (that's) the way to think about it," Harrington said. 

He added that any entities that share a memorandum of understanding or mutual aid agreement with the county will have access to the vehicle. Harrington estimated that the new vehicle would last 20 to 30 years. 

"What we're trying to get across is that we are building this — it is 'gonna be state of the art, top of the line, but the thing with technology is that it may not be current years from now," he said. "If that technology does become obsolete, (the vehicle) has the ability to be retrofitted."