By Randy Kugler
What happened to the promise of building a facility that would provide adequate space needs for City staff? The City accepted its consultant’s recommendation on office space needs that concluded the Police Department’s existing space needs were 2,000 sq. ft. and its immediate space needs was 2,415 sq. ft.. The design submitted by the City for our Police Department will now require them to operate in a 1,586 sq. ft. building.
We were told that we would be getting a new City Hall and Police facility that “can accommodate 10 years of growth”‘. Our Officers will now be placed in a building that does not even provide enough space for their existing nor immediate needs let alone for needs 10 years from now.
What happened to the need to combine City Hall and the Police Department into one building for administrative and operational efficiency? A separate City Hall and Police buildings as has now been approved by the Planning Commission was an alternative concept proposed to the Council this past June as a more cost effective building option.
Under this manufactured building design, our Police Department would have had their own 2,232 sq. ft building and City Hall would have had 4,080 sq. ft. of meeting and office space. Both buildings were designed with solar capabilities and their price included all of the pre-wiring to accept solar roof panels. In addition, this option would have allowed the City to repair and remodel and use the Quonset Hut for a wide variety of community uses as well as emergency shelter and storage to be paid with money already available in the City’s Tourism Promotion and Facilities Fund.
This option would have saved approximately $2 – 2.5 million in total project costs, eliminated hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultant fees, completed construction earlier and lessened the amount of City debt for the construction loan. Even though citizens made clear that cost was their number one priority for this project, the Council declined to even consider this new build option.
The Police building is now designated as our Emergency Operation Center (EOC). In the event of a disaster where electrical power is lost, an EOC requires a source of power generation to function. This typically is provided by a permanently installed standby generator that is housed outside of or within the EOC. The plans submitted to the Planning Commission show neither.
The EVC claimed that they needed a dedicated space to serve as a command center for their volunteers in the event of a disaster. The EVC command center must be in the Police Building, but it does not show on the submitted plans.
For years now, the City has selected which of its consultant’s recommendations it would follow just as long as they were on the new build team of the Council’s choice. When City officials and their representatives thought it was expedient to make a commitment or offer a concept that they thought would gain public support for their desired new build option, it would do so.
The expensive consultant driven team presentations on this project are big on style but have fallen short on substance. How about just providing factual information, telling us what we are going to get and then following through on what we are told.
Part 1 – https://www.tillamookcountypioneer.net/commentary-club-manzanita-bait-switch-part-1/