Last chance to tour municipal court, police station | THE BAINBRIDGE BLAB
Published 1:41 pm Friday, October 23, 2015
Saturday is the last chance for island voters who want to take a tour of the current Bainbridge Island Police Department on Winslow Way and Bainbridge Island Municipal Court in Rolling Bay.
City officials will host the final of three open houses at the police department and municipal court on Saturday, Oct. 24.
The open house is 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and community members will have the opportunity to go behind the scenes with staff to see how the facilities currently function.
Bainbridge voters will decide in November if the police department building and the city’s municipal court (which is housed in a rented building) should be replaced with a combined police station/court building on Madison Avenue just north of city hall.
Proposition 1, if approved, will give the city the authority to move forward with a $15 million bond proposal to finance the new facility. Bonds sold for the project would be paid off over 20 years by an increase in property taxes.
City officials have said the proposed bond would equate to an approximately $100 annual increase in property taxes on a home with a value of approximately $430,000.
The full price tag of the facility is not yet known. City officials have said they do not have estimates for the debt service for a $15 million bond, and the final cost will not be known until the design process is finished.
Opponents of the bond sale, however, estimate the true cost to taxpayers for the project, with interest, could be as much as $28.8 million.
Criticism of Prop. 1 has intensified over the past week, as city officials have acknowledged the Madison Avenue site for the new police station is highly contaminated with chemicals from a dry cleaning business that was once located on the property.
City officials are not scheduling any tours of the polluted property.
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