The funding will support the Department\u2019s Public Safety Vehicles Project, which aims to add new marked Ford Explorer SUVs to improve emergency response times, ease shift transitions and help maintain continuous public safety coverage across the city. The effort also lets the department expand its take-home vehicle program for eligible sworn officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fought to secure this funding because investing in law enforcement is one of the best ways we can keep our communities safe,\u201d Luna said. \u201cThe men and women of the St. Petersburg Police Department show up every day to keep our community safe, and they deserve the resources they need to do their jobs well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Assigning take-home vehicles to eligible sworn officers can increase the visible presence of law enforcement while helping the city stay competitive with other large regional law enforcement agencies, according to the press release.<\/p>\n
The city has used Penny for Pinellas funds over time to add vehicles to the fleet, but the funding has not kept pace with department needs. Mayor Ken Welch<\/a> thanked Luna for helping secure the federal money.<\/p>\n \u201cInvesting in public safety and supporting our officers continues to be a top priority for the City of St. Petersburg under my administration,\u201d Welch said. \u201cThe commitment we have made to public safety takes significant resources, and we\u2019re incredibly grateful for Congresswoman Luna\u2019s effort to secure $480,000 for new public safety vehicles for the St. Pete Police Department.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Luna presented the check at St. Petersburg Police Department headquarters alongside city leaders, including Welch, City Council Chair Lisset Hanewicz<\/a> and Police Chief Anthony Holloway<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Investing in law enforcement is one of the best ways we can keep our communities safe,’ Luna said.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[8861,34332,2346,8123,202,204,203,199,201,200,55612],"class_list":["post-293411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-anna-paulina-luna","tag-anthony-holloway","tag-ken-welch","tag-lisset-hanewicz","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-st-petersburg-police-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/MDW_728x90_2026.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n