Dover auctioning off old cars, equipment, etc.; trading in guns

DOVER – It’s out with the old and in with the new at city offices.

Dover is auctioning off some well-used items and trading in some old police handguns while welcoming a few new vehicles and preparing to move City Hall.

The items being auctioned off through govdeals.com include old police cruisers, the mayor’s old car and riding mowers, all the way down to folding chairs and drinking glasses. Mayor Shane Gunnoe says those items are obsolete or being replaced.

Separately, the police department is trading in 32 guns, most of them Glocks, toward the $40,000 purchase of new weapons with red dot sights on them.

Two handguns that former mayor Richard Homrighausen kept in the mayor’s office are on the list to be traded in. There was a question about the ownership of one of those handguns when Homrighausen left office in 2022. In a court deposition, he said he bought a .357 magnum from former police chief. City officials though said it was registered to the police department. Gunnoe says that dispute has been resolved. Homrighausen, who was mayor for 31 years, said the previous mayor kept the same gun in his desk.

Meanwhile, several departments have received new vehicles, including the Electric Field Department. A $340,000 bucket truck ordered in 2022 just arrived.

“Unbelievably, it takes that long to get those in now,” Gunnoe said.

Gunnoe expects to have design plans done soon for the new city hall. It will be a block over in the former First Federal building at the corner of 4^th and Wooster. Dover’s City Hall has been at its current address – 110 East 3^rd Street – since 1907. Late last year Dover took out $3 million in bonds to pay for the building purchase and renovations.

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