Police Station Still Undecided

Tammy Kregel for The Beacon, August 30, 2005

SHEBOYGAN – The site of the new Sheboygan Police station is still up in the air. Aldermen meeting as the Committee of the Whole Monday night were going to consider possible action narrowing the five sites being looked into for the new police building. Near the end of the meeting, however, Mayor Juan Perez said that he has just received a copy of the final report from Zimmermann Design Group of Milwaukee, a firm hired by the city to conduct design services for the proposed new police station. Aldermen had received a preliminary report last month but did not have the finalized version.

Perez said of the newest report, “It is in final draft form.”

According to Perez, the Zimmermann study rates the county-owned property on North 23rd Street as the top site choice, followed by the current city hall site. The former city recycling center site on New Jersey Avenue rated next, followed by land in the 1300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. Property on the current location of Van Der Vaart, Inc. on South Business Drive and Georgia Avenue came in last.

The preliminary report gave similar findings.

Because the mayor and aldermen had not had a chance to look over the final report, the committee delayed any action on narrowing the field to two sites. They will likely take the issue up again at a meeting Sept. 12.

Ald. Bonnie Cerda said, “We would be at a disadvantage if we tried to narrow it down without all of the information.”

Cerda also said she had realized that representatives from Van Der Vaart had not been contacted about a possible land swap deal in considering that site and said that aldermen should know all the details and investigate all possiblities before making any decisions.

“Some of you may be under the impression with Van Der Vaart, with the information that they had presented here weeks ago, that the city was following up on that,” she said. “Well, I’m here to tell you that nothing was done. I contacted Van Der Vaart to see if the city had contacted them on behalf of the information and the willingness to do a land swap. Nothing. I was told that the ball is in their (the city’s) court.

“I stopped by Van Der Vaart today…they want to pursue possible land swap.”

She continued, “the public has the perception that Van Der Vaart is being spoken to, that this land swap is being considered. I do not want to just have them talking and nothing done.”

Cerda plans to introduce a motion at the next Common Council meeting to have city representatives contact Van Der Vaart and put together any details and figures involving a possible land deal.

Also at the meeting, the committee accepted and placed on file communications from citizens Dimple Adams, Gina Steinhardt, Jeffrey Alan Bubb and Jerry Hemsing regarding the police station.

Speaking at the meeting, Steinhardt said the facts in the first Zimmermann report left some questions in her mind, especially involving the costs. For instance, she said the price for acquisition for Van Der Vaart is placed higher than what would be asked for.

“This whole cost comparison is so far off,” she said.

Bubb added, “Those numbers really haven’t been crunched properly. I think those numbers really need to be looked at a lot better.”

While speaking about her communication, Adams added that the Van Der Vaart site is preferred by the police department.

Also at the meeting, the committee went through some information on the municipal court being proposed for Sheboygan. Ald. Jim Graf said figures showed that the court would hear about 7,100 cases in the first year involving mainly city ordinance and traffic violations. The court would handle those cases instead of the circuit court and would result in lower court costs for defendants.

Assistant City Attorney Chuck Adams said that the number of cases may be a bit conservative but it would probably be relatively close.

The real benefit of the court would likely be in scheduling cases and getting them heard quickly.

Adams said, “Judges never say ‘I’m throwing this case out because it’s so old.’ However, it’s a whole lot easier to dismiss a case when, for whatever reason, it might be a close call when you’re hearing it eight, nine months later because it just doesn’t seem as important.”

“Delay does sometimes cause problems…more so with things like where are all the witnesses now a year down the line. Are you going to be able to get them into court?”