Four possible sites selected for new Salem police facility

Well, after more than five years of planning -- much of it poorly done -- a Salem City Council subcommittee has selected four possible sites in this town where a new 150,000 sq. ft. police facility could be built. 

This happened tonight at a meeting in a third-floor conference room at City Hall.

I and some other members of the Salem Community Vision (SCV) steering committee attended the meeting, sporting purple stickers with the SCV position: $50 Million Police HQ & Seismic 

Salem Community Vision has the answer to this question — a 75,000 square foot facility, 50% larger than the police facilities we have — with room on the site for expansion as the City grows in the future. Also, room on the site for surface parking — much cheaper than a parking structure. This can be built for just under $30 million. And then we also need to include $20 million for a seismic upgrade to our Library and City Hall (we love our first responders, but their lives are not more important than the lives of library users and city hall employees who might be crushed in collapsed buildings when the Big One comes).

However, the City Council subcommittee -- Mayor Anna Peterson and councilors Steve McCoid, Warren Bednarz, and Diana Dickey -- unanimously voted tonight to move ahead with planning for a 150,000 sq. ft. police facility that could cost around $70 million rather than $30 million (more than double the cost of a 75,000 sq. ft. facility, because a parking structure might be needed).

This was recommended by the consultants (the two men on the left of the photo above) in line with previous guidance provided by the subcommittee, though one of them admitted that "this is larger than what anybody expected."

The consultants seemed highly competent. But they're taking directions from the City Council subcommittee. And by nature, consultants want to please the people who are paying their bills. So it isn't surprising that what is being proposed arguably is a Police Palace that Salem citizens can't afford. 

Especially since the price of a 150,000 sq. ft. building has pushed out all discussion of earthquake-proofing City Hall and the Library, which originally was part of the City's plan for a new police facility.

If this unwise proposal moves forward, and somehow were to become reality, police department staff would be enjoying a safe place to survive the Big One earthquake that is a matter of when, not if, while other employees at the Civic Center and patrons at the library would be in buildings that likely would collapse in a major seismic event. 

This is why I wrote, "Why a new Salem police facility could cost many lives."

Salem Community Vision wants to be a part of the campaign to help pass the bond.  

 

Well, I do also.

 

But only if the lives of everybody who might be at City Hall and the Library when the Big One earthquake hits are viewed as important as the lives of police department staff.

 

It makes no sense to give the Salem Police Department a fancy over-priced new building, built to modern earthquake safety standards, if this means there isn't enough money to seismically retrofit the Civic Center. 

 

If the Police Facility Task Force and the Salem City Council are foolish enough to go this route, Salem voters should turn down a bond measure for an overly expensive police facility bond that doesn't include money for seismic upgrades to City Hall and the Library.

Anyway, the most interesting part of tonight's meeting was the selection of four possible sites where a new 150,000 sq. ft. police facility could be located.

The consultants were asked to pick three sites, but Mayor Peterson was so enamored with the block south of the Library, she agreed to pay the consultants more money to have them conduct a detailed site analysis of that location -- which didn't make the top three.

So, in order of the consultant's scoring, these are the most highly ranked sites:

#1: The old O'Brien auto dealerships property at Commercial & Division just north of downtown (129 points)
#2: The DT Storage property across from Boon's Treasury, close to #1 (106 points)
#3: The Windows to the West city-owned property across from City Hall (100.5 points)
#4: The block south of the Library between Commercial & Liberty (97 points)

I've scanned the last two pages from the consultant's presentation that shows the top eight sites, along with the criteria used to rank them.
Download Salem Police Facilty sites

It was obvious that the Mayor really wants a new police facility to be as close as possible to the Civic Center. For a long time she wanted it to be ON the Civic Center property, north of City Hall, next to and over Mirror Pond. 

But this idea got squashed by citizen opposition to such an overpriced (it would require 300 spaces in a parking structure, at $30,000 each) and poorly located building. So now it looks like Mayor Peterson has her heart set on a police facility right across the street, either to the west or south.

However, these sites suffer from the same drawbacks the Mirror Pond site had: too small, high development cost. Like I said, the Commercial and Leslie site south of the Library didn't make the top three, so the Mayor had to demand that the consultants include it in the list of sites that now will get a detailed analysis.

Meaning, the consultants will lay out how a 150,000 sq. ft. building and 300 parking spaces could fit on each of the four sites. The sites adjacent to the Civic Center are considerably smaller than the minimum 3-4 acres recommended by the consultants, being just 2.3 acres each, so construction costs will be higher there.

Now the game-playing really begins. 

The Mayor, and likely some other city councilors, will keep on pushing for an over-priced, overly-large police facility adjacent to the Civic Center. Wiser minds will recognize that a less expensive and smaller (yet perfectly adequate) police facility has a much better chance of winning approval from Salem's citizens.

Especially if the lower price allows for seismic retrofitting of City Hall and the Library.

Which, as stated before, was the original plan by City officials before dreams of a Police Palace began running through their heads.

Comments

[HarryVanderpool]

It just has to be almost breathtaking for citizens of Salem Oregon, that such great analysis and reporting contained in this blog post IS NEVER REPORTED in our newspaper of record; the Salem Statesman Urinal.
There is one teency-weency modification I would suggest however IF you are actually interested in helping our community:
DROP the "strange up" bit.
Brian, I love your sense of humor.
But you are making a fatal mistake.
It's like the question that was asked of Andy Kauffman in the movie, "Man on The Moon".
The question was, " Who are you attempting to entertain? The audience, or yourself?"
The "strange-up" bit was funny at first but an old worn out joke by now.
It serves only to undercut your credibility in testimony as has been proven over and over recently.
Bury it!
Your time and energy is too valuable to waste on pointless, offensive, cockamamie nonsense.
The "strange-up" bit casts you into the corner as a kook, which you are not.
Fix it.

[Brian Hines]

Harry, I can't stop stranging up Salem!

I've got a real logo. I'm over 2,200 Facebook page "likes." This is my calling, my duty, my karma, my destiny!

Plus, it's fun. I really enjoyed wearing my Strange Up Salem t-shirt to the city council subcommittee meeting. It just felt so... RIGHT.

[Susan Tanabe]

Agreeing with Harry, I want Bill to have the respect he (and his opinion) deserve. "Strange Up" does not command respect. I appreciate this article and certainly agree with the points given. As far NORTH as possible (I thought Portland Rd. was ideal). Hoping to see something in the SJ soon.

[siouxiep]

It's painful to read about the incompetence on display with respect to this project. It seems that the current mayor and city council want to build a monument to themselves in a place where they are likely to see it on a daily basis. This is a crew that might be able to handle the complexities of a city a tenth of Salem's size. They are completely out of their league.

I'm not sure the consultants are taking their lead from the council. The consultants work for a company that specializes in building high-end palaces for all manner of clients, including local governments. Of course they are going to recommend something in their wheel-house.

Let's hope the citizens of Salem will balk at the price. You know, 'it's simply unfair.'

[Salemander]

First of all Brian thank you for the excellent reporting on a very important story. The Statesman Journal should be embarrassed that you beat them to the punch on reporting this.

Second of all- ahahaha up to 70 million? Potentially displacing homes/businesses? I guarantee that it will crash and burn when put up to the voters as it rightly should. Which then opens the door to shady financing to get around the voters, which this administration has been shown to do in the past. Maybe they will "borrow" all that money needed from the water and sewer fund like they did to install parking meters.

All I see is thousands and thousands of scarce taxpayer dollars being wasted on pie in the sky consultants and surveys and proposals like the third bridge bullcrap. What a waste.

[Salemander]

One more thing, I just went to the Statesman Journal's website on Friday December 18 at 11:30 am and there is NO MENTION of this anywhere on the front page. Obviously there was no story in the Friday morning printed edition either. What an embarrassment for this community. Unacceptable.

[Not Even Wrong]

Hmm, sounds almost too big to fail.

I propose we give the SPD the non-seismically improved library building and have a new 100,000 sq ft library built on one of the proposed sites instead. By my maths:

A) that just about quadruples the square footage for the SPD, AND keeps it in Mayor Peterson's favorite hood (they clearly aren't worried about the seismic performance of the building, so, Bonus! There's a savings);

3) adds a very modest 10% increase to the square footage of the library (which I propose be dedicated to more newspaper racks, since we've had to go without our own Salem newspaper for so long); and

b) gives the Chamber something to rally against in 2016 other than Kate Brown.

Not the solution Salem wants, but the solution Salem needs.

[Brian Hines]

Not Even Wrong, City officials beat you to the idea back in 2014. See:

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2014/05/salem-public-library-might-be-converted-to-police-facility.html

But the notion got squashed:

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2014/06/turning-salem-public-library-into-police-facility-looks-less-likely-now.html

[Not Even Wrong]

Something about no new ideas under the sun, blah blah blah.

I suppose I'm better late to the game than never.