Just one item, obviously, it's the city council workshop.

So we're having an update on the proposed new law enforcement center, and I'll hand it over to our chief, Chief Sather, and we have some representatives that he'll reference, I believe.

So thanks for being here tonight.

Thank you, Council President.

Before us today is a workshop.

Today is only an informational session, so no decisions obviously be made.

I'll not be asking for any decisions to be made today, obviously.

If

you at any point have questions, feel free to stop and ask.

I'm gonna go through a couple things, and then I'll turn it over to representatives from BKB, and then I'll come back and kind of finish up and then go over some finance-based stuff.

We also have a couple people here to answer questions if needed.

We have Tony from Finance who has run through some numbers with me as well, who can help with that for shifting

it.

In front of you here today is the

proposed new police facility.

It shows 35,000 square feet, a rough cost of 23 million dollars and a 20 plus year planning.

The proposal in here, and I'll get to this later, but we're kind of aiming for a medium build uh in the middle, um, is what my recommendation will be.

However, uh, if we get to this point and a decision's made, that can always be brought backward or forward or whichever way you want to go, along with the cost incentive that goes along with it if that's chosen.

So I think most of us here today know why we need a new police facility, or we need to build on to law enforcement center uh for an expansion.

Uh

the reality is is we're out of space.

We don't have any more space, we've outgrown it.

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this, but um we went through lease negotiations, we lost a little bit of space there.

Uh we have some safety and operational barriers.

Uh

we have basically limited secure separation for public and staff.

Um, we have issues where people come to the law enforcement center and they come to speak with us, they might be reporting a theft, they could be reporting a sexual assault.

Uh

those people come into the lobby, they have to sit there where people are coming in and out of the jail,

uh,

where people are getting released in a lobby where

you know

anybody can sit, it's public area, um, and we just don't really have the waiting space for them to sit in until we can get them into an interview room if one is available.

And so we're we're just we're just limited on space and and uh it's just not a good space for victims currently, right now,

the way we're treated.

Um we've relocated multiple staff over the past several years.

I have a training officer that's been relocated, I believe, three times already uh in three different spaces.

Um

so we're continually evolving and moving things as we need to change things.

Uh it's working okay.

Um we'll get through it for another you know a few years as needed, we'll do what we need to do, but it's it's just not ideal.

Um, and we have a continuation of evolving moving things around and storage issues, um, and which goes into storage space is just exhausted.

Uh we have equipment that is literally sitting out

in

our squad room area, all the radios, shields, um, things like that that just should be in the an ideal storage area.

Uh we don't have storage anymore for our uniforms.

We try to keep equipment and reuse it to save as much money as possible.

Um,

so if we have a new officer that quits right away, we try to collect all their stuff and give it to the next person if it's usable because everything's expensive these days.

Um,

so we try to reuse what we can, and we just we don't even have space to store a lot of that stuff anymore.

So we're we're just we're out of space.

Um, and then back to victim privacy and dignity, you know, again is just one of our biggest issues.

So

a

police facility serves more than just the police, though it's not just about us, um, it's about the public,

you

know, and access to the station, uh, secure areas, it's about the community training, emergency operations.

Um, and so this building in particular would have extra space to do some training, have extra space to uh, you know.

I mean, if we need to have a big community meeting, uh, things like that, places that we just don't have, or if it is available, sometimes it's booked and we can't get into it anyway.