Police station plans went back and forth over the last decade

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Jeremiah Wilson focuses on one of the five monitors in front of his work station at the DeKalb Police Department. (Rob Winner – rwinner@kcchronicle.com)

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DeKALB – Last year was a roller coaster ride for plans for a new police station.

There was the creation of an advisory committee, determinations of size and location for a new facility and dozens of funding options to pick and choose, including a host of tax increases and a water meter surcharge.

However, it wasn't a new ride, and the cars will likely come around again.

"The delay is what has really cost the taxpayers," DeKalb Police Chief Bill Feithen said. "Constant change is what we're doing."

During a marathon city council meeting last September, when aldermen debated for several hours about how to pay for a new police station, Feithen was ready to call it quits.

"We’ve discussed this project inside and out and if the city council is not ready to make a decision on the project or think the city can’t afford this project, then let’s just stop the project, and I’m serious,” he said at that meeting.

The project has not entirely stopped, but where is it going?

It's anyone's guess, the chief said earlier this week.

A funding plan to pay off debt for the $17 million facility was put in place by the city council a year ago and revised several times. But most of it fizzled when the economy turned sour.

What remains is an increase in the hotel-motel tax and heftier police fines, estimated to bring in $100,000 a year to help with debt payments. Even the initial $150,000 put into a savings fund was transferred back into the general fund to help balance the budget, Assistant City Manager Rudy Espiritu said.

A new police station was put on hold indefinitely in May, when the city council retracted a tax increase for restaurants and bars that it had earlier earmarked for the new facility.

Long before a funding plan was attempted, the idea was there. About 11 years ago, Feithen's predecessor, Chief Don Burke, and then-mayor Bessie Chronopoulos discussed a new building, but decided to put it off until a replacement for the retiring chief was found.

"When I was hired, I was told this would be my major project as chief," Feithen said.

The first order of business was forming a group of city officials, in 2001, to look at potential sites. An architectural firm was hired to analyze space needs, and the committee ultimately recommended a site at West Lincoln Highway and Carroll Avenue.

Three other sites the group liked were in that part of town, an area targeted because 75 percent of calls are north of the railroad tracks, and about 44 percent are also west of First Street, Feithen said.

But with new administrations come new agendas. By 2006, the focus was brought back to keeping the station on its current campus.

An addition was planned for the south end of city hall that would house all administrative offices, creating space for the police department to take up both floors of city hall. A second architect was hired for the planning stages, said Public Works Director Rick Monas, who worked closely on that design.

Monas said that the expansion to the 40-year-old city hall was halted when the city council at that time shifted its thoughts back to West Lincoln Highway. Land was purchased there in 2006 and in 2008.

If it remained at city hall and occupied both levels, the police station would double in size, from 17,500 square feet to 34,000. A new facility is proposed to be about 55,000 square feet.

Spreading to both floors would be "only a Band-Aid," Feithen said. "It would only get us what we currently need."

While plans for a new station are still on hold, the idea has resurfaced since the city council was asked to hire another architect to redesign parts of the police department that would alleviate cramped space in the telecommunications center.

Moving dispatchers into a larger room, with new equipment and room for an extra person to work in emergency situations, has been called another Band-Aid approach, but a necessary one. The police department received a grant for new workstations that must be installed by next June.

No other plans to shuffle around have been made, Feithen said.

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