Council Approves New Public Safety Facility
09/13/10 - 05:13 PM
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The Grand Junction City Council worked around the voters Monday night in an effort to build a new safety facility.

Two years ago the plan failed with the voters, but Monday it passed a vote of the Grand Junction city council memebers. Council members say the citizens do want new facilities for public safety but didn’t want to pay for them with permanent taxes.

The council approved a $36-million certificate which is similar to a lease-lease agreement.

This new facility will not be as large as the one put to the voters in 2008.

This 36-million-dollars will be used to meet the basic needs of the Grand Junction Fire and Police Departments while making use of existing facilities.

The facility will also house a new 9-1-1 dispatch center.

When Police Chief John Camper took the job with the Grand Junction Police Department, he was shocked at the department’s condition.

“One of the things that struck me when I first got here was how inadequate this facility is.  It’s very simply the worst I’ve seen in almost 30 years of law enforcement,” Camper said.

Just last week, a fire started in the 911 dispatch center because of corroding wires.  Camper says conditions like that could cause the entire county communications to go down.
“This is a building that was built for basically 40 people.  We have some 200 people working out of this building now.  For anyone that’s come over to see it, I think they know right a
way how inadequate this is,” Camper said.

City Council members voted unanimously to move forward on the facility.

“Just starting with our lobby alone, we’ve got a tiny, little lobby that at any given time may have people coming to request reports, we’ll have a sex offender registering, we may have runaway kids that we’re dealing with, and a sexual assault victim all in one room, which logically doesn’t make any sense,” Camper said.

City Council decided the certificates, which is like a lease-lease agreement, is the best option because it won’t raise taxes.

“Two years ago we had a ballot issue asking the public whether or not they would, through an increase in tax, vote for new public safety facilities.  The ballot did not pass, and so we went back to the drawing board.  We hope that we can get the basic needs of our fire and police department met through this approach that’s less expensive, that makes use of existing facilities, and doesn’t involve public tax,” Mayor Teresa Coons said.

Mayor Coons said there is some opposition to the new public facilities.  Some residents think that there isn’t a need for it, but she says that opinion is rare.

Only one audience member spoke out at the meeting against how the city plans to finance the facility, no one was opposed to the facility itself.

They’d like construction to begin in April of 2011.

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