By By MIKE VOSS
mike@wdnweb.com
Contributing Editor
Several Washington residents have concerns with plans to build a new police station on property adjacent to the city-owned Warren Field Airport.
They voiced those concerns during a meeting Thursday night. About 30 people attended the meeting, with about half of them City Council members, city department heads or other city employees. None of the residents who spoke during the meeting identified themselves publicly when they began speaking. A sign-up sheet for those who attended the meeting included the following names: Matlaine Keech, Bill Davis, Clarence Crosby, Bruce Nederhauser, Arnold Barnes and Ross Smith.
Many of the residents who attended the meeting live in the Smallwood subdivision, which is near the site the council selected for the new police station.
The city plans to build the new police station on the southwest corner of the intersection of Airport Road and North Market Street Extension. The city must obtain a special-use permit from the city’s Board of Adjustment before it can build the facility. A police station is allowed in the city’s airport zoning district.
Residents’ concerns included noise the new police station could produce, where stormwater runoff from the new police station would drain to, the facility serving as a jail and if building the facility outside the city’s core is a good idea.
“The main reason we’re here tonight is to address any concerns,” said Mick Reed, chief of the Washington Police Department, who explained why he believes a new police station is needed to help carry out the department’s community policing strategy. “A lot of this stuff, on the surface, doesn’t make any difference to you. It makes a lot of difference to us. … There’s a mechanics and science to what we do.”
Reed said a new police station is needed because the existing station, opened in 1975, is inadequate because it cannot meet the department’s technological, evidence storage and space needs. Reed said the “rules have changed” since 9/11. Those rules have become more stringent concerning the storage of evidence and the videotaping of specific types of interviews conducted by officers, he said.
Reed said the meeting was more than just an informational meeting; it was an opportunity for the public to provide its input on the new police station.
Reed told residents they should not worry about the new police station being the source of worrisome noises such as sirens being activated as police officers leave the new police station. Reed said officers, for the most part, will be responding to incidents while they are patrolling throughout the city. Any noise associated with police responses from the new police station would be minimal, Reed said.
“One of the major issues is, simply, space,” Reed said.
Kevin Ratigan, an architect with Architects Design Group, which specializes in designing public-safety facilities, told the audience that stormwater runoff from the proposed site likely would drain toward the south-southwest end of the airport. Recently, Smallwood residents complained to the council about drainage problems in their neighborhood.
Ratigan said plans call for building a stormwater-retention pond, which will be designed to collect stormwater runoff from a 25-year storm. The chances of a 25-year storm occurring in any given year is 4 percent.
When one resident said the retention pond would be a breeding ground for mosquitoes, Ratigan said that most of the time the retention pond site would be dry, filling up only in the event of a major rainstorm.
Reed told the residents the new police station would not serve as a jail, but it would include some holding areas to temporarily house people being processed after arrests or interviewed about crimes.
As for locating the new police station in the core of the city so it can better carry out its community policing strategy, Reed said, that like the situation with noise created by officers responding to incidents, community policing works best when officers are out of the police station and patrolling throughout the city, allowing them to better interact with the community.
Reed said the results of the meeting will be reported to the council so it can provide guidance concerning the new police station.
An early recommendation to build the new police station on part of the former P.S. Jones High School site off Bridge Street was shelved after it ran into opposition from residents in that area. After that opposition was made public, the city formed a committee to search for and recommend possible sites for the new police station.
Eventually, that panel recommended four sites, including the site next to the airport. The other three recommended sites were the baseball fields on West Third Street, near its intersection with Plymouth Street; the Herbert Perry Sr. property at John Small Avenue and Hodges Street; and part of the Beaufort County Developmental Center property on West Fifth Street.
In June 2010, the Washington City Council voted to pursue a $3 million loan to help pay for the new facility, with an estimated construction cost of about $3 million and about $1.5 million to $2 million in related costs such as design fees, site preparation and equipment.
The city has $1 million set aside in its public-safety capital reserve fund to help pay for the project.