The Sterling Police Department will be getting a 2025 Chevy Tahoe to replace the 2023 Ford Explorer that was wrecked in a Christmas Day 2025 crash in downtown Sterling.

The crash, at the corner of First Avenue and East Third Street, sent the drivers of both vehicles to CGH Medical Center to be treated for injuries that were not life-threatening. The Illinois State Police investigated the crash. The Explorer was totaled in the crash, Sterling Police Chief Pat Bartel told the City Council on Monday night.

“It is not coming back, so it did knock us down a car,” Bartel said.

Bartel said the department previously purchased police vehicles from Karl Chevrolet, headquartered in Ankeny, Iowa.

“We have no local vendors at all who will deal with the PPV, the police pursuit vehicles, in our area. So Karl gave us the cost of a 2025 Chevy Tahoe,” Bartel told the council.

In answer to a question about why local vendors don’t have a PPV contract, Bartel said he has talked to local dealers about the PPVs and was told that local dealers don’t sell enough numbers for the automakers to offer incentives to dealers.

“They don’t have enough sales. These dealerships that have the PPV contracts, whether it be Ford Explorers or Chevy Tahoes or Dodge Durangos, they buy in large quantities. Last year, Karl pushed out something like 700 Tahoes strictly for police departments across the U.S.,” Bartel said.

The council voted to waive the bid process for the purchase of the 2025 Chevy Tahoe and voted to accept the quote from Karl Chevrolet for the 2025 Chevrolet Tahoe police pursuit vehicle for $52,464.

The council also voted to waive the bid process for the uplifting of the 2025 Chevy Tahoe and accepted a quote from Guardian Fleet Safety in Minnesota for $24,605.

“They go to Karl, they pick up the Tahoe, get it to Minnesota, do all the work there, and then deliver it back to us as part of this package. That includes them coming here to Slim and Hank’s, where the totaled squad is, and removing all the equipment that we can reuse in the Tahoe,” Bartel said.

The uplifting includes installation of all the lights, radios, decals, light bars and other equipment.

In other public safety business, the council approved amending an ordinance to authorize the chief of the fire department to appoint the deputy chief with the consent of the city manager. The amendment states that the positions do not have to be filled from within the fire department and are not considered appointments governed by the Fire and Police Commissioner’s Act.

The change is a return to the way that the deputy chief had been selected, Scott Shumard, Sterling city manager, told the council.

“This is the way it used to be. When we had the shared chief with Rock Falls, that left our highest-ranking person being the deputy chief, so there was nobody to make that appointment that was not shared, and it moved back to me. I consulted Chief Cook at the time to make the recommendation. Now that we are back to having our own chief, it makes sense to put the authority back there and change it back to the way it was,” he said.