The future home of the Batavia Police Department is now in the hands of nine City Council members after Marc Staley, chairman of the Police Facilities Task Force, delivered his committee's report at Monday night's meeting.
Council members congratulated Staley and his task force on their effort and a couple of members thanked him for delivering a clear report that focuses on a single recommendation.
"Thanks to the task force for giving us a recommendation for the best site," said Councilwoman Patti Pacino. "That will make our job easier."
The task force recommended a location on Swan Street, the site of the former Wiard Plow factory, which is currently owned by Tom Mancuso.
It will be up to the council to decide whether to make a purchase offer on the property, likely contingent on environmental clean-up studies and remediation, and whether to seek funding, through a bond and grants, to build a new facility at that location.
None of the council members expressed any opinion either way on whether they will support the proposal.
If they don't, it leaves Batavia PD housed in a former mansion that is more than 150 years old, ill-suited to modern police work, misconfigured for optimal officer safety and it needs substantial cosmetic, mechanical and structural repairs and upgrades.
Staley noted that as the task force's work came to a close, several people in the community complained that the task force didn't consider consolidating law enforcement work with the Sheriff's Office.
"I just want to make one minor editorial comment, if I could," Staley said at the end of his presentation. "You did not ask us 'Should we merge with the Sheriff?' You did not ask us about shared resources. You did not ask us to deal with numbers as far as a downside without this process. You simply said 'Something needs to be done about the police facility. Should we stay? Should we go?' -- so we went out into the community and did our own research and the Swan Street location made the most sense."
The task force worked for more than 55 hours over several months on the project. They considered at least eight possible locations for the facility, including two that were not on the original list drawn up by city staff.
Swan Street, which was still tied up at the time in a legal battle over code violations, wasn't on that list.
Committee members drove around Batavia looking at all of the alternatives, which is how Swan Street and a location at Alva and Bank, ultimately rejected, came under consideration. The committee then whittled the list down to three finalists -- the Salvation Army location on Jackson Street, Alva Place and Swan Street -- and made site visits.
Jackson Street was eliminated when more information came forth about the financial impact of the property being in a flood zone. Alva lost out to Swan largely over concerns about the impact on surrounding businesses and the potential security liability of the location as well as traffic concerns for ingress and egress.
All but one task force member supported Swan Street in the final decision. The site is seen as centrally located with easy access in an area brimming with development potential, but currently underused and not generating significant tax revenue for the city. The large lot also gives the city options for expansion, if needed, and could be a boon for future redevelopment at the Harvester Center.
The council will take up the discussion of the report at a future conference meeting.
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