It will surprise no one that we are writing again to decry the
cost of the planned Gilroy Police Station.
It will surprise no one that we are writing again to decry the cost of the planned Gilroy Police Station.
Although administration officials were thrilled that the bids came in a mere $250,000 below the latest engineer’s estimate to build the public safety palace, we are compelled to point out that when this project was first announced, the price tag was $19 million – and even that was too high.
Now, City Council has approved a bid that means the total bill for building Gilroy’s new station will be in the neighborhood of $27.7 million. The vote was unanimous to build the station, but, in the long run, a defeat for Gilroy.
Unquestionably, the current Gilroy police station is inadequate and overcrowded. We’ve never doubted that our officers sorely need a new facility.
We have doubted that Gilroyans needed a police station that cost upwards of $19, then $20, then $25 million. We have doubted that Gilroyans should be asked to pay for a police station that costs nearly triple what residents in Morgan Hill paid for a station. We have doubted that locating the police station in the Civic Center complex was so important that it should be placed there at seemingly any cost.
If having a city campus is so important, what of the fire department?
For more than 18 months, we’ve written editorials urging City Council to go back to the drawing board and asked citizens to contact their city representatives to implore them to bring the ever-spiraling costs under control.
Sadly, we now must admit defeat. The contract has been awarded and with it, the city’s finest and most expensive public building will be one that most citizens will, hopefully, never set foot inside.
The city’s most expensive public project won’t be an aquatics center that will give residents a fun place to cool down in the summer. It won’t be a library where readers can explore a wide variety of places, people and time periods. It won’t be a community center that plays host to meetings, parties and classes. It won’t be a sports park where softball, soccer and football games are contested.
Instead, the city’s most expensive public project will be a police station, where drunk drivers are taken to dry out, where evidence from burglaries is stored, where unlucky residents might visit to obtain accident reports.
Many Gilroyans have voiced concerns, but apparently not enough to sway our City Council.
Eighteen months from now, when the ribbon is cut on the new Gilroy police station, we urge all Gilroyans to come to the ceremony. It may be the only time you’ll want to visit our city’s most expensive public project.
Now, we can only hope that the Council will tackle with similar energy the building of the on-the-books-for-a-decade sports park and the arts and cultural center.
