A new Saratoga police station proposed
North County Staff
Lance Madigan
Five people using three desks in a 12-by-12-foot office. No permanent storage areas or personal space for staff. Working in a double-wide trailer that you are not only embarrassed to bring your family to but feel is unsafe because there is very little control to keeping potentially dangerous people in controlled areas.
These are just a few of the problems that Saratoga Springs Mayor Timothy Parker pointed out to the City Council last week when he expressed his concerns over the city's Police Department building.
In the end, the city manager Ken Leetham and his staff were instructed to continue investigation into costs and financing options for the first floor of the city building as well as investigate other potential sites. The City Council is scheduled to meet again Jan. 13 to continue the discussion.
With only one door into the facility, Parker explained at the Tuesday meeting that safety was a major concern.
"Anyone coming into the police department has to come in through that door," he said. He cited several cases in which victims of domestic violence came in, and were being followed by an abusive spouse. Parker explained that since the trailer is so small, it can be very difficult to keep individuals safely in separated areas. "Individuals come in an angry state, and there is no barrier. The risk there is tremendous."
There is also very limited space to secure evidence, creating the need to rent space from the Utah County Sheriff's Office in Spanish Fork. Besides the $8,000 a year to rent the space, someone that is authorized to handle evidence has to travel to Spanish Fork to pick up materials that are needed for investigations or trials. This can take more than three hours.
Parker's reason for expressing these concerns over the current police department facility was to propose the city move forward in acquiring new space for the officers.
Currently, the Saratoga Springs City offices are located on the second floor of a business building on Commerce Drive. The first floor is operated by medical service offices, including Alpine Pediatrics, which is constructing its own building and hoping to move out in the next few months. The mayor outlined a plan to have the police department occupy that space when Alpine Pediatrics leaves.
"Why am I bringing this up at this time? Why am I raising a claim of urgency of this situation? We started our police department a year and a half ago when we decided to go away from contract services. We made quite an investment. We made the decision to go above and beyond the bare necessities," Parker said. Besides startup equipment such as computers, cars, weapons and other tools of the trade, the officers and staff were paid at the high end of the going rate in Utah. With market adjustments, Saratoga police officers are now closer to the middle of the spectrum, he said.
Parker said that his concern is that police officers are now in great demand, and other departments are actively recruiting for personnel.
"I don't think it is an issue of salary, but the vision that they are given when they come in," Parker said. "Pay is very often not the deciding factor whether you want to work someplace or not. The important thing is in feeling valued, having the opportunity to grow, and your feeling of identity."
"The working conditions can be a deciding factor in our ability to recruit officers who will serve at the standard of expectations that we set," Parker said. "For an officer coming in before the (economic) crash, there was an anticipation of city growing. Maybe you had to go to work in trailer for a while, but there was opportunity to grow quickly. You were on the ground floor of something new."
"If my vision includes a much better facility, this trailer is tolerable," he said. "If my vision doesn't see a better facility on the horizon, this vision may be a deciding factor if I go here or somewhere else."
Parker said that when new city police departments were started in Carbon County and the sheriff started losing staff, the sheriff did a study that showed that it wasn't the people at the bottom or the incapable that left, but it was the best. "They estimated that it cost three years of the departing person's salary to bring the new person up to the skill level that they could fill that person's shoes."
"We are going to lose what we have invested in if we don't do something," Parker said.
"My biggest concern is finances," said councilman Jefferson Moss. "There is a definite need, but my concern is whether we can afford it. Fiscally, we need to consider if this is the right time."
"I just think about the tremendous change in the perception of the City Council and management when we shifted from the trailer to here," said Councilman Bud Poduska. "To me the safety of the city is one of the major concerns and the safety of the police officers."
The plan, as laid out by Parker, would be to convert the current Alpine Pediatrics offices into a workable space for the police department. "They could be here for 10 years, or 30 years," Parker said.
Because the city administration is still in negotiations with the building owners, the council went into a closed session to talk about costs and potential funding methods. Parker and the city manager said options such as leasing the space from the current owners, as well as purchasing the lower floor and renting the other parts of the building to tenants, were being investigated. The city already owns the second floor of the building.
Past plans had been to build a completely new City Hall with a space for the police department in the bottom. City Councilwoman Mia Love said she wanted to also investigate building a dedicated structure. "They could actually do all the infrastructure they need," she said. "If it costs a little more to build something that will work for years, that just makes more sense."
Parker said that while the owners would be willing to sell to the city, they also had contingency plans for the space. While the council didn't have to make an immediate decision, it was indicated that an intention needed to be made in the coming weeks to put plans into the works when the space became available.
