City council mulling public-safety facility

Published 5:32 pm Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Washington’s City Council wants more study on the issue of a building a new police station — or possibly a new police/fire/rescue/EMS facility — on city-owned land at the intersection of East Fifth and North Bonner streets.

For at least 15 years, city officials have wrestled with building a new police station, building a new fire station to replace the headquarters station on North Market Street or a facility that would house both services.

The estimated cost for building and furnishing the proposed one-story facility is $5.2 million, according to city documents. Several years ago, the council said it wanted to keep the cost for a new police station at or below $3 million.

In June 2011, the city suspended its effort to build a new police station, even after property on Market Street Extension and next to Washington-Warren Airport was selected as the site for the proposed facility. At the June 2011 meeting, the City Council decided the city could not afford to build the new police stations, which carried an estimated $4.3 million cost to build.

During its meeting last week, the council resumed discussion of the issue, focusing on the latest proposal.
“This is the actual No. 1 site selection of the combination fire, EMS and police. It is confined, basically, to the lot we have here,” interim City Manager Bobby Roberson told the council as he reviewed the proposed location for the facility.

“Well, the only question I have about the lot site — the worst question I have about it is I thought we were talking about being in the range of $3 million or less,” Mayor Mac Hodges said.

“That is correct. The reason that it came in at the estimated completion cost is because they combined the facilities. … The staff felt like it was more economically feasible to combine the fire/EMS and police station collectively together,” Roberson said.

Roberson noted: “It’s my understanding the estimated land cost for this type of facility would be close to $750,000 to a million dollars, and that’s the reason they chose this site, because it was actually acquired through CDBG and the FEMA buyout program.”

Hodges questioned how much fill dirt would be needed at the proposed site, which abuts Jack’s Creek, to provide a proper foundation for a building. Jack’s Creek has flooding issues after heavy rains.

Councilman Doug Mercer said he does not recall the council during its discussions about building a new police station during recent years “saying we can combine facilities and come back with a number.”

“I’d like to have some sort of breakdown that tells me that this portion of this building which is the fire department is X number of dollars and that portion that you feel is the police department is X number of dollars and see how those dollars match with that $3 million limitation that we established two or three years ago,” Mercer said.

Stacy Drakeford, director of the city’s Police and Fire Services, said, “In talking with other police chiefs and fire chiefs, there is a movement to start building combination departments because you’re able to get two for almost the price of one.”

Roberson noted that, if built, the facility would be out of the 100-year flood plain, but the parking lot serving the facility could be in that flood plain.

For several years, the city has been setting aside part of its general-fund revenues into a reserve fund to help pay for capital expenditures such as building a new police station. Of the city’s property-tax rate of 50 cents per $100 valuation, just under two cents of that rate is designated for the city’s Public Safety Capital Reserve. That designation is expected to generate $167,000 this fiscal year.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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