City council wrestles with plans for possible future building
During the New Prague City Council's Tuesday, Oct. 3, workshop on its 2024 budget, councilors considered the future of a possible new building for the city's police department.
In previous discussions, the council considered passing on working on a new building, but city staff didn't want to take discussion of the building completely off the table.
City Administrator Josh Tetzlaff recommended the city move forward with some work on new offices for the police department because the cost of the building will get more expensive the longer the city waits.
Councilor Maggie Bass asked if they needed to do as large of a project as proposed under one plan. She thought the conceptual drawing had more than the city likely needed.
Tetzlaff noted a previous proposal was a building which was estimated at $18 million. Under the proposal, the new police department would be added to the city's emergency building, which houses the city's fire and ambulance departments at 505 Fifth Ave. NW. He said the council had decided that was too high. Since then, another concept had dropped the estimate to $11 million.
Bass asked if the city could afford to have a building at $10 million or $9 million and still have the offices needed.
Tetzlaff said while the city could build to those specifics, it didn't want to construct a new police department building and feel like it's too small.
Councilor Shawn Ryan asked if the city needed some of the areas proposed in a previous plan, such as a...
To see more on this story pick up the October 26, 2023 print edition of The New Prague Times.
How big should new PD be?
