Bend Police Chief Jeff Sale says the need for a new mobile command post vehicle has been on his radar since the city hired him in 2011. Then early one morning in March, the string of arson fires at Trinity Episcopal Church and other buildings and cars in downtown Bend reinforced the need for the vehicle.

It was a cold, snowy day but the police did what they normally do when they respond to fires and other emergencies and crimes: they worked out of the back of a patrol SUV to coordinate with other agencies.

Sale hopes this will be the year the department can purchase a new command post vehicle, and City Manager Eric King identified $200,000 in his budget proposal to purchase it. However, the city will not buy the vehicle unless it receives money from a fund managed by the Oregon Community Foundation.

“The mobile command post is proposed to be funded from a foundation and is dependent upon board approval,” King wrote in an email Tuesday. An Oregon Community Foundation board must decide whether to approve the city’s application for funding the command post, and Sale said that decision could be at least a few weeks away. Sale is meeting with the board today.

The Oregon Community Foundation manages a $1 million fund created by Helen Lorenz. Lorenz, a Bend resident, wanted the Fire Department and Police Department to split the money, and Sale said the foundation informed him that $40,000 in earnings on the fund is currently available to the police, plus $20,000 annually in the future. Police and fire officials must apply for the money, and a board will determine whether their project proposals meet Lorenz’s wishes for the money. If the foundation board approves the application, the city will pay for the vehicle and be reimbursed with the foundation money.

The city has a 20-year-old panel van that serves as a command post, but Sale said it is too cramped for several people to work efficiently inside of and it was designed for SWAT operations. “It’s too outdated and too cramped for all those people,” Sale said.

The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office has search and rescue command centers, but those do not meet the city’s need to respond immediately to incidents, Sale said. The sheriff’s command posts are on trailers that must be hooked to trucks and towed; then tents and other equipment must be set up.

“This is basically a self-contained unit that someone gets into, drives to where we need to be, and then all the people who are there can staff it,” Sale said of the 33-foot-long command vehicle he hopes to purchase. “It’s basically a mobile command center to be used for major incidents that take an extended period of time to bring to a resolution.”

In addition to responding to arsons, patrol officers would use the command center during hostage situations and when people barricade themselves inside buildings. Based on the department’s experience, Sale expects to use the command center for this type of situation at least a dozen times annually. Detectives would likely use the vehicle a dozen times a year while investigating certain crimes such as homicides and assaults. The Police Department would also use the command vehicle roughly eight times per year while managing major community events.