SEQUIM — A plan to double and improve space for Sequim Police Department has been scuttled after City Manager Steve Burkett and city staff determined it would cost the city more than double the original estimate.
The City Council recently approved a $34,100 settlement with the contractor, Hannah Construction of Port Angeles, for planning work to remodel the additional space in the Sequim Village Shopping Center on West Washington Street for a police briefing room, office space, an armory and physical fitness area.
Calling the project “poorly managed,” Burkett said he talked to police officers after he came on board with the city nine months ago.
“I heard from them almost unanimously that it was a big waste of money,” Burkett said.
Mayor Ken Hays said the way the project had been managed was part of the reason Burkett asked former Sequim Police Chief Bob Spinks and former city Capital Projects Manager Frank Needham to leave.
“It’s part of why the changes were made recently,” Hays said.
Attempts to contact Spinks for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Spinks, who acted as city manager before Burkett was hired about 10 months ago, negotiated the lease in fall 2008 for the additional police space.
Burkett asked Spinks to seek other employment last March, saying he was no longer the right man for the chief post.
Needham was laid off, his last day having been May 31.
The city never used the space, which has cost about $76,000 in $3,800-a-month rent to building owner, McNish Family LLC.
The 5,280 square feet of space, formerly used for a restaurant, is next door to the existing police station the strip mall on West Washington Street where J.C. Penney Co. Inc. is located.
When he first took the helm at City Hall, Burkett said cost estimates showed the project would today cost $663,000, rather than the $300,000 originally estimated to perform the improvements.
Burkett said he believed that if the council had previously know the project costs would balloon so much, “I think the council would have said, ‘no thank you.’ So we pulled the plug.”
Since 1995, the department has leased a former movie theater of about the same size there that it shares with Clallam County Sheriff’s Office deputies.
The city leases a total of 11,560 square feet in the shopping center. About 1,000 square feet of separate space at the shopping center is used by police detectives.
Burkett said the city is locked into a five-year lease so it must still wisely use the space.
He said options include relocating the public works and planning staff to the unused space from office space leased on North Fifth Avenue, as well as some staff from crowded City Hall on West Cedar Street.
The city is now paying $6,800 a month on the North Fifth Avenue space for the Public Works and Sequim Planning departments and wants to lower its lease costs, the city manager said.
With city offices squeezed for space, the City Council and Burkett have set a new City Hall site selection as the city’s top priority in 2010-’11.
“But it all takes money,” Burkett said.
Burkett said city staff members are talking to the property owner about improving the existing police space, such as replacing the 15-year-old carpeting.
Burkett said the space is intended for retail, not offices.
Acting Police Chief Sheri Crain, who has been with the department since 1991, recalled the original intent of using the shopping center space.
“The idea was if we could not get into City Hall in enough time we would need the space,” Crain said.
“If we were to continue to grow, which is not going to happen, then we would need the space. Ultimately we put the figures together, finding this became more and more expensive over time.”
The department needs to be in “a somewhat police-specific space and we have some security issues with the existing space,” Crain said, adding they involved transferring prisoners to and from holding cells at the department.
Crain, who is one of five finalists for the police chief position, voiced concern that officer safety might be compromised.
Crain said the existing space the department shares with Clallam County Sheriff’s deputies “was always meant to be a temporary solution.”
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.