Favoring local companies good for community

A few hundred dollars could have kept a local company from benefiting from a bid for police cars offered by the city of Yuma, but fortunately it did not.

The reason is that city leaders applied the local preference provision to the bid so that Bill Alexander Ford Lincoln of Yuma could provide 11 new police vehicles for the city. It is an example of the value of this provision.

The contract for the vehicles, which totals $412,051, likely would have gone to a Mesa auto dealer had it not been for the provision. The Mesa company had the lowest bid at $37,137 while the local dealership bid $37,459 per vehicle.

That's a small price increase in order to get major benefits for our city.

It supports a local company that pays local taxes to support our city, which is a good reason to give preference to them.

In addition to taxes, local companies support the community in other ways.

They employ local people who in turn buy products from local companies and rent or buy local properties.

These companies also contribute to local charitable causes.

It also helps that if issues arise with the purchase, officials can go to a local company rather than having to deal with someone outside the area.

It cost city taxpayers a little more money to buy the police cars, but the payback is tremendous.

That is why we supported the passage of a local preference rule in bidding by the city and continue to do so.

The suggestion was made during the depth of the Great Recession by local business supporters. Many businesses were struggling to survive at that time. Fortunately, city officials saw the importance of it and took the necessary steps to get voter approval and state clearance.

We saw the outcome of this wise move last week when Yuma City Council approved the vehicle contract. We hope there will be many more instances of this in the future.