WHITTIER – With the clip of a ribbon, a dream dating to the 1970s became reality on Tuesday.
Photo Gallery: Whittier Police Dedicate New Station
The city officially dedicated its new $35 million, 53,000-square-foot police station, complete with requisite speeches and tours of the facility.
Officers are expected to begin moving into the station at the northeast corner of Washington Avenue and Penn Street – next to City Hall – on Nov. 3.
“It’s been a long process,” said police Chief David Singer, whose last day on the job was Tuesday, about the drive to build a new station.
“I started it in 2001 but it goes back to the 1970s when we were looking to build a new building,” Singer said.
City officials say they needed a new station because the existing 20,000-square-foot facility, built in 1955, was just too small.
“I remember taking a tour (of the old station) when walking past a young lady in tears giving her story to a police officer in the middle of a public hallway, only to find out later that she was the victim of a sexual battery,” Councilman Joe Vinatieri said.
“It was due to the lack of private interview rooms in that old building,” Vinatieri said.
The new station features separate enclosed interview rooms immediately adjacent to the lobby.
“Today is the dedication of an ideal,” Vinatieri said. “It’s what the community stands for – compassion for crime victims.”
When the old station was built, the department had 20 officers. Now it has 124 sworn officers and dozens of support staff.
Even non-city employees saw the old station as outdated.
Rep. Linda S nchez, D-Cerritos, who helped obtain $500,000 for the emergency operations center housed in the new facility, remembers taking a tour in 2002 when she was running for Congress.
“I saw a cinder block, Soviet-era, shabby-chic look to it,” Sanchez said.
Whittier police officers, who will be working there, said they’re looking forward to the additional space they will have.
“It’s much more spacious and the air conditioning works,” said Officer Jeremy Rounds. “I will be going from a 200-square-foot area to a 1,500-square-foot area.”
He works in the traffic division.
Other differences include ventilated lockers, a detectives area that is three times larger and a more modern jail that includes a glass-enclosed command center providing a 360-degree view of prisoners.
Residents who took a tour said they were impressed.
“It’s a beautiful building,” said Erna Van Suchtelen of Whittier, who toured with her husband, Fred. “I didn’t expect it to be so nice. I’m sure morale will get a big boost.”
While there had long been talk of building a new station, officials became serious in this decade about doing something.
But it didn’t come easy. Voters in November 2002 rejected an increase in Whittier utility users’ tax from 5 percent to 7.5 percent.
The idea was to raise about $3.3 million in additional revenue that could be applied to annual payments for construction of a new police facility and a new central library, then at a combined cost of about $55.5 million.
Then in 2006 talk began again of building a station. At first, council members considered asking voters to approve a $40 million bond issue. But polling showed resistance.
In 2007, City Manager Steve Helvey reduced the cost to the $35 million figure and proposed using funds set aside for a new library, as well as money from the water department, Redevelopment Agency, reserves and its asset seizure fund.
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