I remember when for the moment silent verify by the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

So we'll go right to the consent agenda, which is items two through 11F.

Consider these items passed unanimously unless a separate roll call votes requested by a council member.

You want to speak on an item, please come up as I read that item.

If you want to speak on an item not under the agenda, please come up under citizen concerns.

Remember to always state your name for the record.

I'll move the consent agenda.

Second.

Three is a resolution rejecting the bids received for the police department storage facility project.

Chief, did your architect give any real good reasons why he was so far off?

Not really.

That would be uh we spoke with Stan and uh you know we were off the mark, but we also had improvements uh into that uh CIP to the existing building.

That plus the fact that we're dealing with some relatively new issues with the existing structures makes us think that we probably need to pull back and reconsider an overall site plan and what what we're gonna do moving forward, but this is this is kind of like building a new garage when your house needs a lot of work.

So uh we need to retool and and think about what's going to be best or where our money is going to be best spent to uh enhance our training facilities.

So, Chief, what will the process look like?

If you're we're pulling back on this project, I I understand you want to do a broader scope site plan.

What's what's that gonna look like in terms of timing and phasing?

Well, right now, unfortunately, uh uh we have training facilities in multiple places.

Our simulators are at the long line center because there was space there, and our HVAC on one of the buildings, the training center went out, so we just transferred that, got places in long lines.

We'd certainly like things centralized, but the question is how much work should we put into the training center uh by the airport if we relocate to somewhere else?

If we get access to another city facility where we can do some of these things, that would dictate our use of the training center and how much we want to put into it.

Um this was kind of put in the cart before the horse.

And um as the issues with the existing classroom building kind of emerge, it it and that emerged since we started asking in the CIP.

We've we thought we need to pull back, we need to reverse course here, and we need to determine uh where we're best investing our funds, and that I think a little strategic planning on our part, uh not to mention checking with other city departments to see if they have facilities and resources that we can maybe uh piggyback on and and use some of their space for the classroom space for for our training.

Uh so a lot depends on what's available.

So correct me if I'm wrong.

This was a relatively state-of-the-art training facility 25 years ago, correct?

Well, we did receive if you were I'm sure you remember that we received congressional allocation.

That's why uh it seems like it was Senator Harkin.

Uh it was Latham.

Oh, it was Latham, okay.

So Tom Latham, we had a congressional allocation to approve that and turn it into a regional training center.

When we did that, that's been uh between 25 and 30 years ago.

But what was done was existing guard buildings uh or existing base buildings were used.

So what's underneath that training center is a very old building.

The buildings were reskinned.

Uh but in that time we haven't invested anything in that, so it's starting to show its age, and that's where we need to uh we have some mold issues in one of the uh classrooms, so uh we're taking appropriate precautions.

Uh had a uh air quality study done, but we knew that we have larger issues to deal with in the existing facility, so building an evid uh building a building that would have been dedicated to storage of equipment, evidence holding, and then training if possible was probably not the best way to move forward when our were questionable about our classroom and our other training facilities.

So I think we need to do a little strategic planning.

I think we need to check with other city departments.

I think we need to see what the future is for other city facilities that we could potentially get access to before we move forward.

And I think it would be important to look at to determine whether there are any congressional funds available for any portion of what you are describing.

And we are regularly looking out for that.

There are uh a lot of the uh government funds, including some of the ones that we brought before you, uh they're very specific about how we can use those, but we're always on the lookout, and if we could find the funds, we would definitely use that.

What kind of time frame are you thinking for bringing this back?

Well, it that depends on how quickly we can determine what our biggest needs are.

And again, it's we don't want to move forward with something and then have to come back to you and request more, and that's that's part of the problem is is as the costs expand.

Uh also uh again, if we're gonna put work into something, we'd rather it be something we know we're gonna use, we know is gonna be uh our our training facility moving forward.

Uh but if we learn just through studying that there's another option in town as opposed to down at the airport, and all we have to use the airport for is range facilities, and uh then that would determine how we would move forward.

But there's a lot of question marks for us right now, which is why we thought it was most appropriate to put on the brakes.

Uh not that this wasn't needed, but uh we saw other things, and and again, I think we I don't think we move forward until we're sure uh how we're gonna use that facility and and what options we have as far as uh places to do training.

The city has some new facilities as you guys are aware of, and I don't know, we might have to consider relocating some of our functions uh if that works.

Uh but uh right now is an unknown.

We've we're asking ourselves, and I think beyond the strategic planning, we need a hard understanding of what resources we have available, like I said, other city resources that might uh be able to be used for classrooms, et cetera.

So many square feet are storage down there for are you storing uh evidence in that orange Yeah, there's uh so uh evidence that you might might find down there is the larger evidence, vehicles involved in fatality accidents, homicides.

There is there's outside and inside storage, but there's uh I don't know, Mayor if you you've probably been down to the training center, that building to the rear.

And that's in questionable shape too.

So the you know, we've discussed the idea of do you reskin that, do you try to rehab that existing one?

But you it's questionable the infrastructure that we have because you are just building on top of old structures, and that's what the old training centers might look decent from the outside, but it's just one of those uh base buildings that was rescinned uh in the early 90s.

So I I do appreciate uh you coming back to the drawing board and not just coming and asking for more.