It’s no secret that the current building for the Estevan Police Service has become too cramped for its present needs.
Those who have taken a tour of the present facility will see the challenges the EPS faces when it comes to its present home. There isn’t enough space for all of their needs.
Not that long ago, the EPS consisted of four patrol units, four special constables and a police chief. There was enough room for those members, as well as the police cells, a garage, a gun range, a gym and the other amenities they needed.
But the EPS has evolved, with special units and officers being added. There’s a drug intelligence unit, a criminal investigations division, a community resource officer and a forensics lab, among others. All of these have been created with the intent of making our community safer, and improving our quality of life.
And while the community resource officer has been sporadic in recent years due to staffing issues, you can see the benefits of the other units and divisions in terms of arrests for drugs and other infractions.
Having these specialized units also allows the patrol units to remain on the street and focus on traffic and other infractions.
Many of the specialties were created during the economic boom that started more than a decade ago, but they showed their value and have been retained now that the boom is over.
These specialized units, though, have contributed to the strain for the current building. A building that many thought would never be fully utilized is now too small for the current needs. And so it creates a tough question for local police and city council: is it time to renovate and expand the current police station, or build new?
It’s a similar problem the Estevan Fire Rescue Service encountered in recent years, and fortunately the perfect situation presented itself in the form of a vacant vehicle dealership building in central Estevan.
A former vehicle dealership would also be a great site for a police station, but we can’t expect lightning to strike twice, so the EPS will have to expand and renovate its existing building or build new.
A report presented to Estevan city council on Monday night recommended constructing a new home for the EPS. It did so for the usual reasons – constructing new versus renovating, the life span of a new building versus an old one, etc.
And you get the “creature comfort” benefits of having a new building as well.
This would likely be the last renovation the current building could handle, so in 25-30 years, we’ll have to build new anyways.
So why not build new?
Well, the current building is structurally sound. The city purchased a parcel of land to the east of the police station a couple of years ago, and demolished the building that was there. One of the reasons cited for the purchase was to accommodate a police station expansion.
The city could also use the recently-vacated former fire hall for some of the current police operations. The combination of an expanded police station and a renovated fire hall should not only give the EPS the space they need and deserve, but a little wiggle room as well.
There’s also the question of whether this is the best time to build a new police station. The community is facing a lot of uncertainty regarding the retirement of Units 4 and 5 at the Boundary Dam Power Station, the phase-out of conventional coal power by 2030 and other issues.
Should the city dump a lot of money into building a new police station when Estevan’s population might decline in the next few years, and the tax base might be on the wane, too.
The city needs to give the Estevan Police Service the building officers need to keep the citizens of Estevan safe, and to carry out investigations to arrest criminals.
The other priority, obviously, is to do so in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.
It’ll take some work to convince people that a new police station is what we need, when the current building can be adapted to meet those needs.
