A New Police Station for Buena Park?

When Buena Park built its one-story police station in the early 1960s, officials were more worried about the Soviet Union than earthquakes. That’s why it has a huge basement--meant for an emergency bomb shelter--but isn’t prepared to handle an earthquake like the one in Seattle this week.

Tuesday, residents will decide whether to vote themselves a special tax to pay for a new, $15-million police station.

Police Chief Richard M. Tefank has been lobbying hard for it, and there’s no organized opposition. But tax increases take a two-thirds majority to pass, and voters in some Orange County cities have shown reluctance to pay for civic improvements.

“It’s a high threshold,” Tefank said of the two-thirds requirement, “but we hope voters will recognize it’s essential to good policing. We’re spilling out of the police station we’re in now.”

Even without organized opponents, city officials took a strategic step to try to help overcome the two-thirds hurdle. They set up this week’s special, one-issue election instead of having the issue placed on the presidential ballot last November.

City officials believe that residents who might have voted “no” in November are less likely than supporters to show up for a special election. The November turnout in Buena Park was about 68%. This week’s will likely be much lower.

Bob Galloway, who owns an acre along Orangethorpe with six businesses, knew of the issue but didn’t know the election is Tuesday. He wouldn’t be happy about paying new taxes, he said, but “if the police say they need it, we ought to support them.”

The current station was built in 1964, when the Police Department’s total uniformed and civilian staff was less than 80. That number has more than tripled. It’s so outdated, the chief says, that to invest in upgrading it “would be throwing good money after bad.”

The proposed station would contain 50,000 square feet of floor space, about one-third bigger. But besides the extra space, it would be earthquake resistant, more adaptable to modern technology and include proper access for the disabled. The present police station has only two sets of narrow stairs to its basement rooms and no elevators.

Under the special tax, the city would raise about $1 million a year to cover construction costs. That amounts to $30 extra a year for a single-family residence or a single-family condominium and about $120 annually for a small business. Businesses on an acre of land would pay $600. The ballot measure, called Measure P, includes a provision that the rate per residence could not be increased.

Boosters advertise that the average citizen would be paying only about 57 cents a week in increased taxes if this special tax is passed.

But other agencies confident they’d get a financial boost from special elections have come away disappointed. Five years ago, Placentia residents turned down a special tax to help its financially-strapped library. Two years ago, Anaheim residents wouldn’t support a two-thirds vote to help reduce their badly overcrowded elementary schools, despite heavy, door-to-door lobbying by the teachers themselves.

But Buena Park officials remain hopeful.

“People who are against it are those who oppose any new taxes,” said Mayor Art Brown. “But we are hearing very little opposition.”

The tax has the unanimous support of the City Council, plus the city Chamber of Commerce, the city’s police association, the Buena Park Women’s Club and the Buena Park Senior Citizens Commission. Those groups jointly authored the sample ballot statement in favor of Measure P. No one filed an opposition statement.

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One argument Tefank encounters during his talks on the subject: Building a new police station ought to be the city’s responsibility, not the voters’. But the city has no money budgeted for a police station. It is already spending $6.5 million for a new City Hall, scheduled to be completed in two years, and doesn’t have enough funds for both projects.

Like the new City Hall, a new police station and would be at the present Civic Center location on Beach Boulevard just north of Orangethorpe Avenue. One-story city buildings there would be razed.

If the special tax is passed Tuesday, it would take about four years for the police station to be built and operational, said Tefank, who is retiring next month after 12 years as the city’s chief.

The new station would include community rooms for the public, an indoor firing range and a 24-bed jail, double the number at the current detention facility.

“We’re always overbooked on weekends,” Tefank said. “We simply have too many hours of police officer time running prisoners to Santa Ana because we’re out of space.”

Polls in Buena Park will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

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A Civic Vote

Buena Park is hoping to add a new police station to a new City Hall at its Civic Center.