By By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
At its meeting next week, the Washington City Council will consider adopting a capital-project ordinance for $12.6 million to design, construct and equip a new police center.
The city is applying for a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help build the center, and it anticipates receiving $6.3 million for construction of the center. That’s according to a memorandum from Matt Rauschenbach, the city’s chief financial officer, to the mayor and council.
The city also plans to obtain a $6.3 million construction loan from a bank.
As the city works to get the financing arranged, police personnel are preparing to meet with Architects Design Group later this month to do a needs assessment and discuss possible sites for the new station, said Sandy Blizzard, assistant police chief. ADG has been hired to design the new facility.
“We are meeting week after next … to start the ball rolling toward construction,” Blizzard said Thursday.
If the project moves forward, it’s estimated completion date is December 2011.
In related business, the council is expected to accept a $40,234 grant to pay for a temporary, law-enforcement development planner for a year.
The money comes from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, administered by the U.S. Justice Department. The grant funds are available as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The planner would assist the Washington Police Department and the city identify and apply for grant funds to help finance a new police center and other parts of the city’s capital-improvement plan.
If hired, the person would do among other things, public-facilities planning, strategic planning and community-services planning, according to Bianca Gentile, the city’s temporary stimulus-funding coordinator.
Police Chief Mick Reed has said he believes the availability of the grant this summer comes at a good time because two efforts are converging.
One is the city’s plan to build the new police station, and the other is “numerous possible funding opportunities” for the department from the American Recovery and Revitalization Act, Reed said.
The planner would oversee the effort to obtain such funding, then shift to coordinating the expenditure of those funds, including compiling and filing reports and other documentation required by funding sources.
The planner also would help find funding opportunities for other city departments, Reed said.
Earlier this year, the city identified about $25 million in projects for which it is seeking federal stimulus money, including $4.2 to help build a new police center.
The council meets at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Council Chamber of the Municipal Building, 102 E. Second St.
Proposed appropriations
for police-station project