Gilroy’s police department has been cramped and overcrowded for quite a long time. Closets were turned into offices years ago, and the old building hardly suited a town passing the 50,000 population mark.
Today’s opening of the new headquarters, the C.J. Laizure Building, will dramatically change all that.
Our police officers, department staff and the administration will have ample room – more than 100,000 square feet. They will have high-powered technology to improve efficiency, a spacious garage and some standard business comforts like well-appointed meeting rooms.
The new PD has come with a very heavy price tag – likely more than $27 million. And the building unfortunately opens with a dark cloud hanging over the department and City Hall in the aftermath of the secret retirements of both Chief Gregg Giusiana and Assistant Chief Lanny Brown. The secret retirements prompted a strong reaction from the Gilroy Police Officers Association, decrying the negative effects on morale and the erosion of trust within the department.
Those are serious matters that the City Council should heed – and openly discuss in a public forum soon.
But today the sun will shine and a huge City of Gilroy public works project will be unveiled.
While that doesn’t mean that the community should forget that the new station is neither on time nor on budget, perhaps time will soften those irritating fiscal realities.
By all accounts, the building is an ugly view from the outside, a monstrous and unfriendly behemoth, architecturally unconnected both to the rest of City Hall and the community. But, by some accounts, the inside is comfortable and inviting from the spacious lobby to the interview rooms.
The public can judge for itself today as the city opens its doors to a facility few will ever get a chance to see.
It’s also a chance to take a tour, see the new jail and get a sense of what we’ve spent our money on, for better or worse.
Beyond that, it’s an opportunity to meet some rank-and-file officers and say thanks. They certainly have deserved a new facility for a long time.
And hats off to Jim Laizure, Gilroy’s former police chief. The building naming is well-deserved recognition.
Perhaps with the building’s opening a new wind will blow, one that ushers in a new Gilroy PD era.
