by GABRIEL HATHAWAY
The city of Winona and Winona County are moving toward building a new joint law enforcement facility. The Winona City Council and Winona County Board met jointly Monday to discuss next steps on the city’s public safety facility project. At the meeting, officials said they are still interested in a new joint facility and will move forward with deciding on a site, hiring architects to begin detailed design work, and narrowing down wants versus needs.
The Winona County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) and Winona Police Department (WPD) currently share the county-owned Law Enforcement Center (LEC). Prompted by limited space and some missing safety features, city leaders have been looking into a potential new police station, and last summer, the city proposed a $33-38 million new joint facility. Last November, the city and county formed a joint task force to explore remodeling the LEC or building a new station. City architects took another look and found remodeling the LEC would cost $28-35 million, and building a new joint facility would cost $23-26 million. Task force and City Council members Jeff Hyma and George Borzyskowski favored building new, while County Board members Dwayne Voegeli and Marcia Ward were split. Recently, more County Board members, including Chris Meyer and Voegeli, said they favored a new facility but wanted to scale back some of the city’s proposed amenities, such as an indoor gun range.
At Monday’s meeting, City Manager Chad Ubl shared potential costs for the project. He noted that — if the project’s budget was capped at $25.5 million, a suggestion Hyma made at a task force meeting, and if the city receives an additional $9 million from the state and dedicates the $7.5 million it already has in state funding to the project — the city and county’s share could be $4.5 million each. The city is currently requesting $13.5 from the state legislature, but Ubl noted it is unlikely that Winona will receive that funding this year. He added the city could make a smaller $9 million request during the next legislative session.
Hyma said that keeping the WPD and WCSO together makes the most sense and noted that a new joint facility would allow the city to use its $7.5 million from the state on the project as well as set the project up in an advantageous position for future funding. Training has been another aspect of the project, Hyma noted, and he said while he is open to whether that need is met at the new police station or elsewhere, he said law enforcement and firefighters are required to train. “I'm open, if it makes sense to have it part of this facility? Great. If it makes sense to have a separate training facility that is combined across firefighters, ambulance crews, county sheriff, city police, great. That's fine too. I mean, really whatever one is most cost effective,” Hyma said. “To me, it makes sense to take all of the various agencies that have training requirements and have one facility for everybody.”
County Board member Chris Meyer suggested that training space at the new police station could also double as a meeting room for the county to accommodate large public hearings and also suggested designing the station to include a new home for the Winona County License Center. “There are a lot of reasons that the county would benefit from a bigger space that we could use for the various things we need to do,” Meyer said.
County Board member Marcia Ward said she has not heard anyone asking for a new public safety facility, and she added that planning to spend millions on a new facility before a sales tax referendum this fall for the county’s new jail is problematic. “It doesn't make us safer,” Ward said of a proposed new law enforcement facility. “It doesn't make us, you know, mental health facilities. It doesn't expand the housing and the needs of the community. It's an office building.”
City Council member Jerome Christenson pushed back, stating, “I haven't had any constituents come up to me and say, ‘I really want you to build a new police station.’ I've never woken up in the middle of the night and said, ‘Gee, I'd love to have a new water heater.’ Some things we have to do because they're outdated, they're worn out, and they're tired.” Christenson emphasized the importance of considering future needs. “What are wants today will be needs next year,” Christenson said. “When the LEC was built, there wasn't much need for WiFi. There wasn't much need for data processing. There wasn't much need for DNA analysis in 1975. What is it that we're going to be looking at 50 years down the road that this facility that we're looking at providing is going to have to accommodate?”
Next steps for the public safety facility project would include moving from conceptual design into pre-design, Ubl said. First, the city and county will have to select a site for the project before architects are hired to begin more detailed design work. During design, wants and needs will be narrowed as well as costs and timelines. Ubl suggested that the task force meet narrow needs versus wants and bring them back to the respective governing boards.
City Council member Scott Sherman said he favors a joint facility at the ProBuild site, located downtown at 165 West Second Street, and noted that the project will only get more expensive as time goes on. City Council member Aaron Repinski said while he is fiscally responsible with taxpayer money, he sees a need for improved facilities. “Our building is 50 years old. People need to look at it sometimes in perspective as it is not necessarily spending money but investing money in our future,” Repinski said.
Meyer said while she has desired to minimize the costs of the project, it is important to move forward into pre-design to get better numbers and a better understanding.
“I want to be frugal,” Hyma said. “I want to be very conscious with the money that we're using, whether it's from the state, whether it's from the county, whether it's from the taxpayers. But at the same time, the current facility isn't going to serve us going forward, and at some point, we're going to run into a significant problem.”
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