Cook employees need to share cars, commissioners say

Two Cook County commissioners are proposing the government trim its fleet of 2,000 cars by joining a shared-car program known as Zipcar.

The commissioners — Republican Gregg Goslin of Glenview and Democrat Bridget Gainer of Chicago — also want an accounting of how many county-owned cars are taken home by employees and why those employees merit such treatment.

“That’s one thing I’ve been asking for several years, to get that kind of inventory,” Goslin said. “There are very few people who need a car 24-seven or even five days a week.”

Calling government cars “a notorious magnet for corruption,” Gainer said the county could piggyback on a Zipcar program the city of Chicago is using to save an estimated $400,000 a year by trimming its fleet by just 100 cars.

Zipcars, used by individual drivers as well as companies and universities, use key card technology to let members quickly check out and use cars.

“The county runs jails and hospitals and collects property taxes. Buying and maintaining cars is just not what we should be doing. It is not part of our core mission,” Gainer said. “The county needs major cultural change around cars. County-owned cars for managers and take-home privileges for high-ranking staff are an expensive relic of the past and one we cannot afford.”

The two commissioners estimate “several hundred nonemergency vehicles” could be immediately eliminated in favor of car-sharing, such as cars used by county inspectors, Goslin said.

President Toni Preckwinkle has already moved to centralize fleet management and consolidate vehicle purchases. Gainer and Goslin said in a release that the Zipcar program would “leapfrog traditional centralization and go right to car sharing and professional fleet management.”

Preckwinkle has signed on to co-sponsor the resolution. “It’s something we want to examine within our fleet-management committee,” said Preckwinkle spokeswoman Jessey Neves.

Neves said that, as of now, “I don’t have specifics on the take-home use.”

The proposal will be introduced at Tuesday’s county-board meeting and will call for a report within 30 days on the countywide car inventory and the estimated savings, if implemented.

“Why wouldn’t we do that?” Goslin said.