City Council, February 6th - Police Station Work Session

Do you remember that spreadsheet funding tool that let citizens assemble different funding packages for the Salem River Crossing?

$2.00 toll, $1/$1000 property tax, and $0.10 gas tax = not enough
from an N3B pass at the funding calculator

It was ugly, but it let folks walk through difference scenarios and see what a range of possible realistic outcomes might be.

On Monday, Council will have a work session to revisit the prospect of a new Police Station, and Staff have gone down a decidedly constrained path. There are two choices on the menu right now:

1. If Council chooses to refer only a police facility question, the recommendation is a 127,000 sq. ft. building for a $69.1 million bond measure.
2. If Council determines that seismic upgrades should be included with a police facility question, the recommendation is to include the library (at $15.3 million) and reduce the police facility to 115,000 square feet (at $63.9 million) for a $79.2 million bond measure.

This is ridiculous.

The ostensible "thrifty, low-cost" option for a $69.1 million bond measure is still a giant, over-sized "Police Palace."

The more expensive option for a $79.2 million bond measure includes seismic work on the Library - but crucially appears to omit any seismic work on City Hall itself. And while it retreats a bit on size, going for the L instead of XL, it's still nowhere near the 75,000 square foot facility that was originally approved.

Council should instead get a menu of choices that looks more like this:

Floor area/staff (choose one - and remember the consultants themselves said "the generally accepted standard range [is] 400-800 square feet per officer")

1. small (400 feet/officer)
2. medium (533 feet/officer)
3. large (667 feet/officer)
4. extra large (800 feet/officer)

Growth Rate for sworn officers

1. slow (crime rates don't rise, and Salem grows modestly)
2. medium (Salem itself grows fast, but crime does not)
3. high (things are falling apart)
4. militarized growth for disaster, anarchy (the apocalypse)

If you've seen coverage about the PERS mess at the legislature, you'll know about other pressures on budgeting, and we have reason to believe that technology will be changing quite a bit, and maybe Council will decide that it is prudent to build for a 20 year growth horizon only rather than for a 40 or 50 year horizon. This punts the next decision and any new construction one generation out instead of two, it's true, but it also gives Salemites more flexibility to tackle other pressing issues right now. Dollars in hand right now are more valuable than trying to save on future construction costs a generation from now.

1. build for 20 years of growth
2. build for 30 years
3. build for 40 years
4. build for 50 years

Let those variables drive the size and be calculated...

1. small
2. medium
3. large
4. extra large

Choose construction and finish quality

1. basic
2. good
3. fancy
4. palatial

Seismic Add-ons (which seem to be more expensive now)

1. Library ($15 million)
2. City Hall ($29 million)

Like the Salem River Crossing this whole thing seems to be driving to a pre-determined conclusion rather than inductively arriving at what is best, what citizens want, and what citizens say they can afford.

Why can't Council - and citizens - get a model and tool that lets them game out the options and choose the package best for Salem?

SCV and others will doubtless have more to say.