November 23, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Editorial: Move forward on new police building

Palo Alto's lengthy processing of just about everything has no better poster child than the long-demonstrated need for a new police headquarters.

The existing 25,000-square-foot building, behind City Hall, years ago began to resemble more a crowded inner-city police precinct than an efficient police headquarters for a city of 60,000 residents (and daytime population of more than twice that).

The present building does not meet acceptable standards for evidence storage, interviewing rooms for crime victims and witnesses, and holding cells. And, in a major earthquake, the building could be unusable, or worse -- the one structure that may be most needed during a major catastrophe might not be available.

The City Council Monday night responded positively to a push by several respected citizens to create a "blue-ribbon panel" to examine all aspects of the proposal.

This is a great idea -- even if surfacing late in the game. While always important to have informed citizen input about the need for a new facility, service or infrastructure expansion, in this case it could be the factor that finally makes a new police building happen. The citizen panel that studied storm-drains was a decisive factor in winning voter approval of a fee increase to fund the work -- after a humiliating earlier defeat.

Yet one can't help wonder where everyone has been for the past half-dozen years that the need for a new police headquarters has been explicitly discussed in one form or another -- in great detail. Discussion of the need for a new police or public safety facility actually dates back to the mid-1980s, when a consultant recommended 60,000-square-foot facility.

In the late 1990s, citizens were called together as committees and for feedback, and helped evaluate 10 different sites. In 1999 a nearly 2-inch-thick report detailed need for a 50,000- to 60,000-square-foot "public safety building." The Weekly did a cover story on the department's deficiencies and needs in September 2001.

As Councilman Vic Ojakian -- who clearly did his homework -- noted Monday night, this subject has been extensively studied and prioritized for many years, over generations of police chiefs and city staff.

One also wonders why such a panel was not proposed early this year, when three council members -- Mayor Jim Burch, Bern Beecham and LaDoris Cordell -- suggested in colleague's memos that up to $6 million could be saved by considering some type of "turnkey" project: building a new building separate from the present building to avoiding interim relocation costs.

Local developer Chop Keenan then came up with a plan to build a new police building a block east of the existing City Hall, on a site that is part public and part private parking plus a small building -- on Gilman Street between Hamilton and Forest avenues.

To open the process, the council in late August asked for "statements of interest" from other developers. Three responded. One had no site in mind; one suggested two sites; and the third submitted three sites -- two of which were on dedicated parklands, hence not considered. Land-acquisition challenges encumbered the other sites, and the Keenan proposal emerged as the staff recommendation.

Stiff opposition from California Avenue area businesses killed an earlier proposal to locate a new headquarters on a city parking lot there. Supervisor Liz Kniss disclosed Monday that a county-owned site may now be available along Park Boulevard.

The Keenan proposal will now become one of a broader range of alternatives examined by the panel. It envisions a 64,000-square-foot building costing an estimated $48 million (in 2007 dollars) -- slightly larger than some earlier need estimates. But this would include 5,000 square feet to house the city's Information Technology Department, currently in leased space. It would include space for a new Emergency Operations Center, now in cramped (and possibly at-risk) quarters in the basement of City Hall.

The existing police station could be converted to other city uses, including the city's Development Center, now in leased space across Hamilton from City Hall, resulting in "significant" savings, according to staff.

The council is doing the absolute right thing to create the blue-ribbon panel, and to allow it a reasonable period of months to complete its work -- but it should not be at the cost of extreme, open-ended delays in an already excruciatingly long process.

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