Town Looks at Other Options for Police Station
By David Huck | Correspondent at November 7, 2023 | 9:45 am | Print
Town officials are now focused on alternative ways to meet the needs of the Police Department following the defeat of a referendum question that asked voters to bond $21 million to build a new police station on Farmington Avenue.
The final tally was 5,064 to 3,148. The ballot question asked voters to bond $21 million, which would have gone towards the construction of a new and expand police station near the 900-block of Farmington Avenue.
Deputy Chief John Klett said the department was disappointed with the outcome of the referendum but said officers will “continue to do the job with the space we have.”
“We’ll go back to the drawing board and hopefully find something the town’s people are willing to accept,” Klett said. “The need is there and the demolition of the current site is going ahead. It’s just a matter of finding a plan we can all agree on and afford.”
Many residents took to the department’s Facebook page after the results came in to show their support for the department despite the loss.
“You guys did a great job campaigning and advocating for your needs,” said former resident Nick Addamo, who now lives in New York. “Keep doing great things—I hope a new police HQ on Farmington Avenue is still in Berlin’s future.”
The debate, however, will likely now be around looking at another location or an option that is cheaper, according to Robert J. Peters, the vice chairman of the Police Commission.
Town Manager Denise McNair said that the Town Council will likely send the proposal back to the Public Building Commission, who then has to work with the Police Department and Police Commission to make revisions because “the statement of need does not go away.”
“There has to be steps taken to address the need,” McNair said. “The only people that could take away the statement of need is the police, but they were the ones who created it.”
Sandy Heller Roski was another resident who wrote on the department’s Facebook page, saying the police department “needs” a new station. “It’s not a luxury, it’s a need. Sad,” she said.
Others said they voted against the plans due to the cost and unnecessary “expensive styling,” which incorporates things like energy certification and “fancy glass,” one resident said. “You deserve a new police station but $21 million and the building proposed is ridiculous,” resident Tom Campanelli wrote. “Tighten the purse strings, design a building for function not style and get it down to a real cost that the tax payers can afford.”
Echoing comments made by other town officials, Klett noted that the longer the project is put off, the more that construction costs will increase due to inflation. He said there’s a concern that the longer that the project is put off, the greater the possibility that “we get less for more.”
Klett said that most of the comments he received from residents were in favor of the project. He noted that turnout was low by residents during informational sessions and tours of the police station. Klett said he thought he location for the police station on Farmington Avenue was “good” due to its centrality to the rest of the town and its nearness to the redevelopment efforts at the train station. Officials looked at around dozen other sites over the years. “All the options were explored,” he said. “None were found to be viable or cost effective.”
Had funding been approved for the station at Tuesday’s referendum, construction likely would have started early in 2015 with the station likely opening in 2017.
Peters, a Republican and retired Berlin police officer of 28 years, also said he was disappointed with the result but said he understood why voters disapproved it, citing the unknown potential for tax increases.
“If it weren’t for the high school (renovations), it wouldn’t even have had to go to referendum,” Peters said. “The main thing was the cost and getting a handle on the taxes. If you are retired and living on a fixed income, I don’t know how you survive. Do we have some people like that? Sure we do. but we also have some millionaires. Berlin is not that poor.”
If town officials decide to “knock off $5 million” as Peters suggests as one potential option, the revised project wouldn’t return to a referendum vote unless there is a petition requesting one. He said there was nothing “grand” about the plan to build a new roughly 30,000 square foot police station.
“Where do we go from here? I don’t know. It’s up in the air. The Town Council will debate that,” Peters said. “Sooner or later they will have to build something”
McNair said there was no plan “B” that was created in the event the proposal was rejected. “This was the plan. This was what was worked on for probably two years. At this point the voters have spoken, which is their absolute right,” she said.
McNair said officials worked hard to respond the the department’s space inadequacies for some time and to create a plan that kept costs under control.
“If that could have been done, that would have been done,” McNair said when asked about reducing the $21 million project. “There were many sites that were looked at before this one was settled upon. The cost is what the cost is. Can you remove things from the plan? Of course. But does it satisfy the program requirements? That has to be the Police Commission and Police Department who determine that. You could build a 5,000 square foot building, but it won’t solve anyone’s problems.
“No one went into this thinking we should build the biggest thing that we could build,” McNair added.
