City narrows police station site search
Press release
And then there were two.
Last week, the Athens City Council narrowed the site options for a possible new police station down to two locations:
North Pinkerton Street, on land owned by the City next to the current police station, or
U.S. Highway 175, on land owned by Henderson County between the City's Development Service Center and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) building.
The Council focused on the two possible sites after hearing architect Ron Hobbs describe the advantages and disadvantages of six proposed locations throughout the city. In addition to other specific considerations, each of the rejected locations would have required substantial investment to develop.
"We're trying to be very protective of the overall budget for the project," said Mr. Hobbs. "We wanted to make sure that was one of the priority items that we looked at."
The Pinkerton location has the advantage of already being owned by the City and having a communications tower on site. It is, however, a smaller site that isn't on a major highway.
The Highway 175 site is large, very visible, and has a communications tower on site. But, it is owned by the County and does not currently have sewer service on the property.
The Council directed City Manager Elizabeth Borstad to continue researching the viability of the Highway 175 location for future discussion.
At the beginning of the discussion, Athens resident Kiwana Hurd addressed the council saying she supports having a new police station but is against putting it in its current location. She said poverty is a problem in North Athens and investing in a new police station in the neighborhood could be seen as a "slap in the face."
"We need to face poverty with hope," she said. "I know we have a good group of individuals in our City offices who are going to take the concerns of North Athens into consideration, but I would like for us to understand that we have to be delicate with how we handle people in broken situations."
The City of Athens will hold a $5.5 million bond election on Nov. 2, 2021, for the purpose of building a police station. The project is not expected to require an increase in the tax rate, because the City's financial advisor said the impact of the bond should be "a fraction of a penny."
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