Better police station site would save millions

Published 1:30 am Friday, March 11, 2022

Bainbridge Island taxpayers have an outstanding opportunity to save millions of tax dollars and to build a new police station at an ideal central location.

That can be accomplished by using the undeveloped portion of a parcel of BI Fire Department property, adjacent to Station 21, at the intersection of Madison Avenue and Highway 305. The site provides access to Highway 305 and is located at a prominent and readily accessible part of the island.

It is very important that we recognize the financial benefits that would result from this plan. It makes all of the funds that would be available from the sale of the city properties – previously considered as sites for the police station – to cover construction costs for a new police station.

That would save taxpayers millions of dollars. Those properties would include where the present police station is, the former Harrison Hospital building and the New Brooklyn parcel.

Conversations with a large number of islanders indicate widespread support for this plan.

To accomplish that would require the same level of citizen support that was apparent in 2014 when BI fire commissioners proposed having the police station be part of the then-new construction planned for Fire Station 21. The proposal had overwhelming support of 87% of those surveyed at that time.

Rebuilding that level of support should induce the fire department and city to utilize that parcel, thereby achieving a rational solution for the long-standing police station problem.

The undeveloped portion of the fire station property, located between the station and Highway 305, consists of slightly more than one-half acre of buildable land. It is capable of accommodating several large buildings and parking.

The original proposal appears to have been discounted by the City Council and mayor, despite the overwhelming public support for a joint facility. The only reason given in a 2014 copy of The Bainbridge Review newspaper was the mayor saying the plan “was too complex,” citing potential problems with “tenant/landlord” relations. But the BIFD did not consider that to be a problem.

City records show the proposal was rejected by the City Council 5-2. The original BIFD proposal was accompanied by a study done by CFM Research Co. summarizing results of a survey. The report concludes the proposal had overwhelming support and predicted a planned bond measure would pass.

Ironically, a bond measure for a different site a few years later was defeated by a huge margin.

We need to take up this fight again. It is incumbent on we taxpayers to convince the city to utilize a portion of that undeveloped parcel for a new police station because of the considerable savings and a universal desire to have a police station that we can all be proud of – not a make-do renovated building tucked away in a dead-end alley.

I urge all of you to make your voices heard by contacting city manager Blair King, Mayor Joe Deets, any councilmember and Scott Isenman, chairman of the fire department board of commissioners.