Simi Weighs Options for Damaged Police Station

It will take weeks to repair the damage done to the Simi Valley police headquarters by just 30 to 40 seconds of earthquake.

But officers and at least one City Council member say repairs are not enough. They want the building replaced, at a cost estimated between $10 million and $15 million.

The city staff is compiling a report on the City Council’s options--from completing repairs to building an entirely new police headquarters, Assistant City Manager Mike Sedell said.

Parts of the 23-year-old building sank six inches in the magnitude 6.8 quake Jan. 17. Its walls split at the seams, ceilings sagged and broken water lines flooded floors.

Damage to stairwells rendered the second-floor locker room and gym, and the first-floor records department unusable. Police now have to don uniforms in trailers outside and carry records across the parking lot to makeshift storage in a neighboring building.

The department itself was up and running at full capacity within a day or two, Police Chief Lindsey Paul Miller said.

“The biggest inconvenience was the first day, when all our filing cabinets, desks and chairs were thrown all over the place. Everything in the police station was basically a big jumble,” Miller said. “Once we got that cleaned up, once we got the electricity and the water back in, it was basically business as usual.”

But smashed plaster, fallen ceiling tiles and severed wires are strewn throughout the building, Deputy City Manager Bob Heitzman said.

The damage is repairable, officials say.

But before any interior work is done, contractors must jack up the building to its original height by injecting concrete into the ground underneath--a process called “pressure grouting,” Heitzman said.

The city expects repairs to take 70 days and cost nearly $200,000, about 90% of which is to be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Sedell said.

But inspectors from FEMA and the California Office of Emergency Services said the city must do engineering studies to determine the full scope of the damage before it can receive any disaster aid for the police headquarters.

“It was the worst hit of any of the city buildings, but there wasn’t any substantial structural damage,” Sedell said. “It can largely be rebuilt to its original condition or better.”

But some are calling for a new headquarters to replace the police complex, a patchwork of former city offices built in 1971 and 1973 that were originally meant to house the Police Department temporarily.

“The building did not do real well,” said Sgt. Gary Collins, president of the Simi Valley Police Officers’ Assn. “We have guys saying, ‘I don’t know if I want to go back in that building.’ ”

The earthquake was “a wake-up call” about the building’s lack of earthquake protection, Collins said, and the police union wants city officials at least to begin planning for a new headquarters.

“We don’t want a building today. We don’t want a building tomorrow,” Collins said. “We want the same type of commitment to us that was given to the builders of the (proposed) mall and the Cultural Arts Center. In two or three years, plan on identifying and purchasing the property. . . . Get some architectural renderings done. In four years, we’ll do the groundbreaking and, in the fifth year, we’ll move in.”

City Councilwoman Barbara Williamson, who recently won the union’s endorsement for her election bid in the 4th Supervisorial District, said she too wants a new police headquarters.

The city should launch a five- to seven-year plan to replace the building because it is old, unsafe and too small, she said.

“When the residents in our community voted for Proposition 172,” she said, referring to a sales tax for emergency services, “I think they were saying it was our responsibility to take care of our police and fire. And to me, this is taking care of our police and fire.

“There’s a lot of buildings in our town that . . . need repair,” she said. “The city has been absolutely devastated because of the earthquake, and we’re looking at millions of dollars in repairs. But I don’t want to see the police station put on the back burner. I don’t want a Band-Aid approach to fix it.”

Mayor Greg Stratton said he believes that the building will be safe enough after the repairs.

“The earthquake damage has been, I think, a little blown out of proportion,” he said. “It was messy because a couple pipes broke. The real problem we had was a water heater let go, and that makes it look a lot worse than it really was.”

Stratton acknowledged that police are crowded in their present quarters and said the department should go ahead with plans to expand into the former East County Courthouse next door, he said.

And he said he has no quarrel with starting to plan for a new police headquarters.

“The point is, it’s going to take time to build it,” Stratton said. “The real thing is, where do we get the money? Where do we locate it?”