More funds allocated to police facility
The Columbia City Council approved a measure at Monday’s meeting that will allocate funds to furnish and equip the new Columbia Regional Police Training Facility.
“It was a necessary allocation for us because that was not covered in the original $1.5 million,” Interim Police Chief Tom Dresner said.
The allocation of $83,593.50 was not a part of the 2005 Public Safety Ballot tax initiative, which provided the $1 million for the actual construction of the building, but instead comes from the Law Enforcement Training Fund.
Dresner said those funds are generated from court ordered revenue allocations from traffic violations.
“The money will basically be used for equipping the training facility with all of the needed furnishings such as the office furniture, conference room tables and chairs and audio visual equipment,” Assistant City Manager Tony St. Romaine said.
Fifth Ward Council Member Laura Nauser said the proposition was not unexpected.
“It’s just all part of the process,” Nauser said. “We’ve begun construction with the groundbreaking, and getting the equipment in line was the next thing.”
Mayor Darwin Hindman said this approval addressed an obvious need.
“It obviously needs to be furnished,” Hindman said “The staff looked around and found that we could pay for it this way, out of the budget, recommended it and the Council agreed with that.”
The training facility will provide the much-needed training space for the department. Hindman said training is becoming more important today with the advancement of weaponry and accessories both criminals and police have.
“It’s essential if you’re going to provide adequate, good policing that you have adequate and good training,” Hindman said.
The groundbreaking, which took place Dec. 22, was the official start of construction of the facility, but initial foundations had already been poured by that time.
“Due to the cold weather and freezing conditions, that’s kind of put a hold to a certain extent on the future concrete pours which are going to be needed so we can start erecting steel,” St. Romaine said.
St. Romaine said they hope to get a break in the weather soon so the additional foundations can be put in place.
Both Dresner and St. Romaine said all the structural steel has already been delivered to the site.
Although the City Council and the police department don’t see the need for further allocations to the facility, they aren’t completely ruling out the possibility.
“I’m sure we’ll get things throughout the course, as with any type of building process,” Nauser said. “They’ll be adjustments to supplies and costs for building.”
Nauser said future developments like this are common with building projects but she doesn’t foresee any new costs at the moment.
St. Romaine said there could be unanticipated expenses, since the construction contingency is relatively small, at about $50,000.
“When you’re building a facility of this size and magnitude, or any type of building the city, there’s always unanticipated expenses,” St. Romaine said “We hope that that contingency will be enough so that we don’t have to go back to Council again for any additional appropriations.”
The facility is on schedule to be completed by this fall.
“Once that foundation gets put in, the building should be going up fairly rapidly,” St. Romaine said.
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