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If $42 million complex is approved at STM, article will go before voters in November
By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – On Tuesday, Sept. 29, Shrewsbury Annual Town Meeting members will vote on a single warrant article – if the town should borrow $42 million for a new police and municipal campus.
At the Sept. 22 Board of Selectmen’s meeting, the Police and Municipal Campus Building Committee provide an update to the Board on the proposed project.
Patrick Pitney, committee chair gave brief remarks of welcome and introduced the committee including Police Chief Kevin Anderson who provided an overview with Matt Salad from Tecton Architects.
“The original building was built in 1971 with approximately 9,000 square feet,” Anderson said. “In 1996 we added approximately 8,000 square feet bring the total size to just of 17,000 square feet.”
One of the issues he noted was prisoners are released right into the lobby of the station. Additionally, public access, prisoner processing, witness interview space and booking areas are insufficient. The building also doesn’t meet public health guidelines.
Salad explained that the dispatch center was severely out of date and technology has changed.
“Currently this houses just the emergency communication system for the police department whereas the desire to combine the EMS and all emergency services into a single community communication center, that way there is coordination across all your emergency services,” Salad stated.
The current system they are using has a standalone for police and fire and other aspects of the town use their own communication systems.
“The goal is to unify through digital technology all aspects of the town including DPD and SELCO who use public system radios,” Town Manager Kevin Mizikar commented.
He added that the new police station will be located just to the west of the current station and would be built without disrupting police operations.
“We wanted to make sure that we were separating out the police parking and giving them their own parking lot and a separate entrance so that they could respond to an emergency without having to interfere with the public,” he continued.
Mizikar pivoted to the project budget with its financial implications. The total cost is projected to be $41,964,364. The terms for the debt exclusion are 20 years.
Because Shrewsbury enjoys a favorable AAA bond rating, the expected interest rate is 1.9 percent equaling $8,224,625.
Mizikar said that 50 percent of the homes in Shrewsbury are valued at $441,200. Those homeowners can expect to see in FY2022 an increase of $194.13 to their property taxes per year. However, that will be offset by the high school and other land acquisition debt that will come off the books.
He noted that the new building is expected to serve the needs of the community for the next 50 years.
Board Chair Beth Casavant asked the police chief how old the current emergency system is. Anderson replied that it was about 20 years old.
“I don’t know that I want my first responders using 20-year-old technology that is difficult to repair and not reliable in an emergency situation,” she said.
The Board also approved at its Sept. 22 meeting a measure to reduce the quorum of 121 of the 240 elected Town Meeting members to 81.
The Special Town Meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the field house at Shrewsbury High School, 64 Holden St.
