A Closer Look at Warrant Article #8 - New Police Station Design
Voters should make sure they think the town needs a new police station. Worst case is to spend tax money on a design that doesn't get built.
Warrant Article #8 is for $40k for selecting a location and preparing a design for a new police station. Funding for building this new police station would come via a future warrant article.
The text of the warrant article:
So far the public has little detailed information about why a new police station might be needed. The objective of this article is to help voters decide whether they want to spend the money necessary to construct a new police station.
One problem with warrant articles such as this one is that the preliminary warrant article to create a design and calculate a project cost gets passed, but the warrant article to fund the project gets rejected. This recently happened in Nottingham. The voters approved a $95k warrant article to design an expansion to the school, then rejected the warrant article to fund that expansion. That’s $95k the taxpayers cannot get back. $95k spent fruitlessly.
To prevent that from happening with the $40k proposed in Warrant Article #8, voters should be well informed of the issues. This article is a photo essay of the existing facility along with an interview with Police Chief Fawn Woodman.
New London, NH, appears to be in a similar situation as Nottingham with regard to the need for a new police station. Their Board of Selectmen has been educating the public about this need, including producing a video for voters. This video shows many of the same problems with their existing police station that Nottingham has, including being co-located with the town’s Recreation Department. As in Nottingham, New London voters have been asked to fund $40k for designing a new police station.
Cost of a New Police Station
One major issue is how much a new police station would cost. Police Chief Woodman could provide no estimates on this. Here’s what some other towns in New Hampshire have spent or been quoted for new police stations:
Tilton in 2020 approved $4.7 million
New Hampton in 2000 approved $5.9 million (originally estimated to be $1.9 to $2.4 million)
Lincoln 2024 warrant article for $6 million.
Tuftenboro 2021 warrant article for $2.5 million.
Hudson 2023 warrant article for $5.93 million.
The cost of a new police station would be funded by a bond and spread out over several years. Some forward-looking towns, however, have set up funds to start accumulating funds to pay for expected replacements of their police stations.
It’s worth noting that these figures are similar to the proposed $6.1 million addition to the school that the voters rejected after spending $95k for a detailed design. While we do not know the final price tag for a new police station, it seems reasonable to expect it to be similar to what other towns have seen.
Police Chief Woodman, the Board of Selectmen, and the Budget Committee all unanimously agree that the town needs a new police station. However, if you’re not convinced, you might wish to consider that if you vote for Warrant Article #8 and later vote against building the police station, you’ll be voting for throwing $40k away.
Now is the best time to become familiar with the case for building a new police station.
Why Do We Need a New Police Station?
The short answer is for two reasons:
The location next to the Community Center puts the public at risk, particularly children involved in Recreation Department activities.
The facility is outgrown and does not meet current standards.
Is the Need for a New Police Station Driven by Accreditation Requirements?
Chief Woodman was emphatic that the need for a new station is not driven by the state’s new police accreditation program. Chief Woodman said these standards were mostly about police processes and little about facilities. She was confident that Nottingham would meet the new accreditation standards without any expensive investment in the facility.
Location Problems
Having the Recreation Department, Town Hall, and Food Pantry right next to the police station entails several problems.
Sex offenders have to periodically physically report to the police station. This happens about weekly.
Dangerous individuals who might escape are brought to the police station. For example, there was an arrest made at the state park a few years ago of someone on methamphetamines who was especially difficult to restrain.
Police and police stations are targets for violence. (E.g., Carl Drega’s serial killings in Colebrook in 1997.)
Pedestrians and cars are at risk when police cruisers have to leave the station in a hurry. This is particularly a concern about children in the driveway who are there for Recreation Department programs.
These problems have been known from the beginning. Because of them, the town’s former Police Chief, Gunnar Foss, was opposed to moving the department to its current location.
Facility Problems
The police department moved into its current facility in 2002. The department was formerly housed in the upstairs area of the Old Town Hall.
In the 2000 Census Nottingham’s population was 3,701. In 2020 the population had increased to 5,229 - a 41% increase. Since 2002 the department has added 2 full-time and 1 part-time officer, for a total of 9 officers, roughly proportional to the growth in the town’s population. As the town has continued and is expected to continue to add homes and residents, further growth in the police department needs to be planned.
In the US, towns the size of Nottingham have, on average, 2.5 officers per 1,000 residents. Nottingham - being a low-crime, nice place to live - fortunately, doesn’t need that many officers, but its current facility was not designed to accommodate the number of officers now employed by the town.
Officer Parking
The station has reserved parking for only 4 officers. Further, the parking is open to the public. Officers’ cars are targets of vandalism. If cars can be associated with individual officers, officers are at risk of being stalked. The ideal is to have all officer parking in an enclosed, gated area not easily visible to the public.
Cruiser Parking
All of the cruisers are currently parked outside and accessible to the public, where they have been subjected to vandalism. If there were a parking garage for them they could not only be protected from vandalism, but cruiser life expectancy could be improved. Chief Woodman thinks we might be able to squeeze as much as an additional year of service out of each cruiser. Currently, cruisers are kept for about 5 years and about 200k miles. New cruisers cost about $50k for the vehicle, and each vehicle requires about $50k more in equipment
Visitor Parking
The current station’s visitor parking is immediately in front of Town Hall - a very public place. Some people who need to visit the police station are uncomfortable about being seen doing so. There’s also a problem with Town Hall visitors using these reserved spaces.
Office Space
While the chief’s office is adequate, desk and office space for the other officers is in tight supply. There are only two computer desks for them to share. The Lieutenant and the Sergeant have to share a small office. The Corporal doesn’t have an office, and has to share a long section of counter with all of the other officers.
Locker Room & Restrooms
The current station has two small restrooms, but just one small locker room with just one shower for our mixed-gender police force. Not that the shower gets used much anymore, because for some reason there’s no hot water. The sink in the holding cell doesn’t work anymore and the toilet there is frequently out of commission
.Workout Room
Being an officer requires meeting physical fitness standards. It’s customary for police stations to have workout rooms. The one at our current station is so small that the elliptical trainer must be kept in the hallway.
Sally Port
Due to a shortage of storage space, some items are being stored in the sally port. This is undesirable because these items could be used as weapons.
Sally ports should be enclosed by a fenced, gated area. Ours is not.
Storage Space
The department has lots of things it must store. In particular, it must store records, and every year there are more records to store. Every storage area is being used near capacity.
Equipment Storage Room
There are recurrent problems with leaks from the roof.
Evidence Rooms
There are two evidence rooms. These are ultra-secure because they’re full of things such as drugs, guns, and jewels, and items needed for trials. One is long-term and the other is short-term. Both are about 6x10 and are reportedly kept nearly full.
Outdoor Shed
The shed is used to store things such as the electronic speed-detection sign and traffic cones. It’s full.
Server Room
The IT infrastructure for the current server room is maxed out. A major overhaul would be needed if the department were to need an additional server.
Complaint Room
The Complaint Room should be wired for audio/video recording, but it is not.
Booking Room and Holding Cell
These rooms are sufficient, but since, fortunately, few of us ever get to see them, here they are.
Possible Locations for a New Police Station
The old fire station has been suggested as a possible location. However, the site is not only too small, but being so close to the intersection of routes 152 and 156 the location would make for a traffic hazard. Also, the slope is too steep. This would be expensive to remediate because the old fire station sits on a granite shelf.
Putting the new police station next to the current Fire Station may not work out. Space there may be insufficient for our current needs, and even if not, putting the police station there would probably preclude the ability to expand either station to accommodate further population growth in the town.
Chief Woodman said she’d prefer to have a new police station located a short drive away from the school as on a typical day the greatest concentration of citizens in town is at the school.