DEAR EDITOR:
Why doesn’t The Dispatch tell the whole truth about the building
of the new police station?
DEAR EDITOR:
Why doesn’t The Dispatch tell the whole truth about the building of the new police station?
Fact: NOT ONE CENT OF MONEY FROM OUR GENERAL FUND, NOT ONE CENT OF ANY PROPERTY TAX DOLLAR OR SALES TAX DOLLAR OR GAS TAX DOLLAR is being used to pay for the new police station. It is 100 percent paid for from development fees being collected from homes to be built over the next 20 years. Even every minute of city staff time, from planning to engineering to administration that is used on this project is being paid for from this development fee money and NOT from the general fund. Gilroy taxpayers are not paying ONE cent for this new station.
Fact: the station is being built to accommodate the growth that will occur in Gilroy over the next 20 years as outlined in the General Plan and is being built AHEAD of time to get the most bang for the money spent, to allow the facility to be used for multiple purposes and to avoid having to spent MORE money later on for a subsequent “expansion,” an expansion that like everything else in this world would cost MORE if done LATER. The words “economy of scale” apply.
Fact: the City Council spent over 18 months studying the need for the new station, studying every aspect of the design, and worked through a complete and comprehensive master plan for police services, questioned EVERY expenditure and element of the station and design, and even deliberated between the choice of a single new facility, the expansion of the existing facility or whether a satellite facility should be the approach taken before deciding UNANIMOUSLY to create a single, new, comprehensive facility that will serve this community for the next 20 years and beyond.
Fact: the choice of putting parking UNDERGROUND actually saves land. Instead of needing to construct a parking structure next to the building, thereby interfering with the ability to expand the Senior Center complex and requiring even MORE land be taken, having the parking underground makes it more cost effective. It also allows the city the ability to provide 100 percent SECURE storage for impounded vehicles, which does NOT exist today. Anyone who has ever had their vehicle towed to a private lot only to later find that someone hopped over the wall and burglarized it knows how important security for impounded vehicles is. There is also the “chain of evidence” security issue; impounded vehicles in an underground secured garage are better as evidence that vehicles that are stored in some private lot until trial; it’s much harder for defense attorneys to challenge the security (and therefore the integrity) of the evidence when it has been under full police control (custody) all of the time.
Fact: constructing the building NOW for the future needs allows the city (and hence the taxpayers) to be able to use parts the building meanwhile for other purposes; for example, the additional underground parking can be used in the beginning for other civic center parking needs, thereby removing the parking of other city vehicles on city streets around the Civic Center complex, freeing up additional parking for citizens coming to city hall or to the library or to the senior center.
I could go on and on … Every element was carefully examined in detail, discussed thoroughly and justified.
The City Council and city staff have a standing offer to EVERYONE in this community to come review this design and plan at any time. We’ll be glad to walk ANYONE through each and every element (or any of them that you want), go through all the research, study work and decision making process that made the choices. After all, decisions should be made on the facts. And the first step is to understand them. Anything else would be simply reckless.
Tom Springer, Mayor, City of Gilroy
Submitted Tuesday, March 4 to ed****@****ic.com
