Newton residents won't get a second chance to vote on a new police station this year, but police Chief Lawrence Streeter hopes the town will approve a new — and cheaper — plan next March.
"I think they sympathize and understand," Streeter said of the town's voters. "It's just a question of affordability."
Streeter has been trying to get a new police station built for several years. What started out as a public safety complex that would cost more than $4 million has been scaled down over the years — to a $742,000 project last year and now even further.
Local businessman Chester Bearce has offered to sell the town 5.5 acres of land with two commercial buildings on it for $600,000 — to be paid over 10 years.
"There's 2,200 square feet immediately available that is vacant on the first floor, that the Police Department could literally move into tomorrow," Streeter said.
Bearce was willing to allow the department to move in on a purchase-and-sale agreement with the selectmen, which would hinge on the passage of a warrant article at Town Meeting, Streeter said.
Bearce, who formerly owned an excavating business, said he wasn't sure exactly why he made the offer.
"Things are tough enough around everywhere now," Bearce said yesterday, "and they're never going to get off of square one until something like this happens. So maybe that's the reason."
He said he hoped voters would enable the department to move into a better facility.
"I'm hoping to see something better than what we've got," he said. "It doesn't necessarily have to be the Taj Mahal, but its got to be better than what they've got."
The station is in a one-story, 1,296-square-foot structure built in 1982, and accommodates seven full-time employees. In April, the Local Government Center, which supplies insurance to the station, concluded the building was too small for its use and presented several potential air quality concerns, according to court documents. The problems included a lack of space for ventilation of office equipment like computers, rusty, dirty air-conditioning units, soiled and worn carpets, and water damage.
Files from 2003 forward are stored in the main entrance hallway of the station, crowding the area. Other files are stored in trailers, which have been damaged by water, humidity and rodents. A private cleaning company estimated the cost of cleaning up the "environmentally contaminated files," which must be kept indefinitely under state law, at about $14,000, according to court documents.
Streeter said the land Bearce is offering the town was worth more than $1 million. Paying $600,000 over 10 years would lessen the impact on the taxpayer. He said it would amount to about 11 cents on the tax rate, or about $33 on the tax bill each year for 10 years for a $300,000 home.
The building would need a new bathroom and a wall partition before police could move in. Those renovations would cost between $8,000 and $10,000 — less than it would cost to fix the problems at the current station, Streeter said. For at least 10 years, the purchase agreement would allow Bearce to live above the station in residential space.
"I'm not ready to leave my property yet," Bearce said.
Streeter said the other building on the property could be a potential location for the Fire Department, and the space upstairs could eventually become extra office space for the town, which also has a cramped Town Hall.
"Not only does it solve our problem ... it gives the town a lot of usability," he said.
In June, Streeter petitioned Rockingham County Superior Court for a special election because of a clerical error on the warrant article that appeared on the Town Meeting ballot in March. The proposed plan came in less expensive than originally expected, at $740,000. But the warrant article contained references to that price and an original, higher one, just over $1 million.
In a decision June 24, Superior Court Judge Tina Nadeau denied the request for a special election. She wrote that while the clerical error did merit the attention of the court and the consideration of a special election, the situation at the station did not rise to the level of emergency called for in the state statute allowing a special election.
To warrant a special election, the failure of the article to pass had to constitute an emergency, the judge wrote. She wrote that the conditions did not affect the department's ability to respond to emergencies, and "the court cannot find the air quality and space issues alone constitute severe harm."
In recent months, Streeter has moved into a trailer of his own at the station, which he said has helped a little bit.
"It alleviates some of the square footage issues," he said.
But the building is still too small compared with International Association of Chiefs of Police standards, he said. He said each employee ought to have a minimum of 300 square feet to function normally — and their station is about 900 square feet short.
"I guess that doesn't make it an emergency," he said.
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