Albany County has formed an agreement with Suffolk and Westchester Counties to electrify its motor pool.
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy was joined by Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, a fellow Democrat, to announce a new shared services partnership to procure electric vehicles together. McCoy says the combined purchasing power of the three counties will drive down the costs associated with transitioning away from fossil fuel-powered fleets.
"We were looking at Chevy Bolts originally and they got the total recall. So when Steve Bellone was talking about doing this and he took a leadership down there with Westchester County and George Latimer, I was like 'What better way of doing this, putting three big counties are they're actually a lot bigger than we are, purchasing power, to drive that cost of electric vehicles down and in seeing what we can get the best bang for the buck so to speak, which benefits the taxpayers and benefits the environment going forward'. So it's a win win situation what we're doing, I don't know, we could end up with Tesla's we talked about it because Tesla's weren't much more than the Chevy Bolts. T hey weren't much more money. So we looked at that too, but we're gonna look at what's the best price for that for all the three counties and hopefully more counties get on board going forward.”
Bellone is encouraging other counties to participate in the interests of building back after COVID with cleaner, greener energy. "Throughout this pandemic, we have worked together, we have talked to each other, comforted one another at times. But really, we've gotten through this by doing it together. And I can't thank Dan enough and the great leadership here. And this is another example of that. And I think model for what we need to be doing moving forward. And I think we will do that more. We're not done with COVID yet, we're not fully out of this crisis. But certainly we've learned enough lessons now.”
Albany County Legislature Chair Andrew Joyce is also a Democrat: "We have an opportunity now to do really good things, and we're going into our budget process for 2022. And we continue all the great progress we've made in Albany County to be good stewards of the environment. We are in the midst of a climate crisis right now. It's not impending. It's not on the way we are in a climate crisis as we speak."
McCoy says electric vehicle charging stations are already planned to accommodate the updated fleet. He unveiled a new request for proposals RFP for a fleet inventory and electrification plan, as well as plans for installation of new dual-port public charging stations. "We're going to be adding one at the Voorheesville trailhead at the Albany County Rail Trail. We're adding one at the trailhead at the County Rail Trail at South Pearl Street, one located at our Ann Lee National Preserve in Colonie, and one at the Albany County parking lot 208 Washington Ave., one at Lawson's lake in Feura Bush, two located at the county hockey facility. And six more added to the Times Union Center."
Officials say the new shared services procurement initiative allows for the local municipalities within each of the three counties to buy and lease electric vehicles as well.
