A Powwow with Two Chiefs - Part 1 - Space Constraints
In a continuing effort to get to the facts about the new Public Safety Building Proposal, I called Chief Petrovich’s office, and requested a meeting. His assistant Chris was extremely helpful and friendly, and she was able to juggle schedules and get a few minutes from both Chief Petrovich and Chief Van Helden. They were accompanied by Dyan Lee, the Police Department’s PIO. They met with me in Chief Petrovich’s office.
The first thing you have to note about both of these gentlemen, was their obvious passion for the job that they do. They were consummate professionals, eager to share their knowledge, and their love for our City. They were also quick to point out the pitfalls of the current building, and the real dilemma we will face in the event of a major storm passing through our area.
Both of them readily admitted that mistakes were made in the early stages of the project, primarily centered around communication about the project itself. They are working actively to correct that situation, and they were happy to provide me with information that helps express the problems that they are facing.
A great deal of speculation has been made on the blogs and forums. Many people expressed concerns about the cost, the state of disrepair of the current building and the oft mentioned ‘done deal’ atmosphere. I questioned the Chiefs about the assertions made out on the Internet, and got a lot of solid information that shatters the myths.
I asked if the Police and Fire departments planned to share the new space with other city government agencies.
Chief Petrovich offered a few cautions, explaining that certain portions of the facility could not be open to non-police personnel. These areas include places like the holding cell areas, and evidence processing areas. These areas will be built for growth for the next 15 years, and will represent unused space, early in the project. However, he added that he hoped to “shop around” for other police agencies, such as county, state, or federal law enforcement groups that may need some of the specialized space that they offered. There was some discussion that we could potentially lease some of the unused space to these agencies, and help defray some of the cost of the building. Chief Petrovich was also quick to point out that they were still evaluating other areas of the facility that could appropriately house non law enforcement personnel. He intends to follow through on the Mayor’s demand that the space be used as efficiently as possible.
Some of the space that is built for growth for the Fire department will go into immediate use for some of the city employees at the overcrowded City Hall. The Fire Department has much lower restrictions on cohabitation in the space that is assigned to them. The City Auditor’s Office, which is currently in the same building as Police and Fire, may also move over to the new space when it is constructed.
Both of the Chiefs also agreed that there is another often over looked advantage in the new space. Currently, there is no space in the existing facility to grow “departmentally”. In other words, if the Police need to add a CSI Unit, or a Gang Unit, or a Family Services Unit or some other new department to offer new services to our City, they simply cannot do it with the current space.
Some space changes are already in the works. The IT Department gets a significant boost, as does City Hall, when the IT department removes computer equipment from the Network Operations Center in City Hall to the EOC building. This will put the City’s entire IT infrastructure in a hardened, secure facility, that is already purpose built for extensive computer operations. The new Public Safety Building will include a fully modernized EOC, to replace the existing one. The space limitations in the existing facility allowed for only nine seats. They currently have 11 operators in the various roles, and they are unable to add additional radios to expand their ability to respond to more than one dispatch at a time, per service.
In addition, the current police and fire building sits on City land. The City has a number of options, including building new office space on this land, to house other offices for our growing city. As the mayor also pointed out, this new (or renovated) facility could also house many of the County and State services that Cape Coralians currently have to travel to Ft. Myers for.
