Cohasset seeks $21 million debt exclusion for new police station

COHASSET — Voters at town meeting will be asked to approve $20.7 million in borrowing to build a new police station at 135 King St. to replace the current station, which a police sergeant described as “falling apart.” 

This new borrowing would be on top of $10 million that the town already set aside for the project. The town spent roughly $4 million of that to purchase the 135 King St. property, according to select board members.

Supporters of the project say that the current police station, which has failed state inspections for the past ten years, poses safety and privacy concerns. Some detractors say that the station should be renovated to avoid adding millions to Cohasset’s debt.

The select board decided against putting the project on last year’s town meeting warrant, citing concerns that not enough planning had been done. Now, an architecture firm has created three plans providing differing accommodations to the police and fire departments. The plan on the town meeting warrant will cost about $26.8 million, compared to $25 million for the cheapest plan and $28.4 million for the most expensive.

Glen Pratt, chair of the Public Safety Facilities Committee, said in a presentation at the March 19 select board meeting that the project would add about $520 to the tax bill of a property valued at $1 million.

The current plan requires renovating and expanding an existing building at 135 King St. to 23,000 square feet.

The town initially planned on including a fully outfitted fire substation at the building for $28.4 million, but the plan was scrapped to minimize cost because the fire department did not feel that it was an immediate need. Now, the building would just include a garage to house an extra fire engine, though the garage is designed to be easily renovated into a fire substation if the need arises.

Patrick Reardon, a sergeant at the Cohasset police department, said during the March 19 meeting that the current police station originally accommodated six employees, and the department now employs 21 people full time. In one room, the department trains officers, charges tasers, and conducts interviews with crime victims. If the station has to conduct two interviews with crime victims at once, they have to commandeer an administrative office. The holding cells were made in the 1960s and do not have access to water.

Reardon said that the poor state of the facility scares away qualified candidates.

“Policing has changed over the years. You want people that can deescalate, that can be part of the community, that want to be here. It's very hard to find a person that can do everything and tend to Cohasset’s needs.”

Another officer at the meeting said that his office is blocked by the room used to conduct interviews, so he cannot leave his office during interviews to protect victim privacy.

“Or my alternative is to climb out the window, which believe it or not, I've actually had to do because I had to go somewhere,” he said. “It's insanity, the nature of the workplace that we are working in.

If the 135 King St. project is approved and completed, the town would then renovate the current police station at 44 Elm St. to hold town offices. Architects said they were unable to provide a cost estimate for that renovation because it would have to begin in several years, after the 135 King St. project wraps.

The $21 million debt exclusion does not include the cost of renovating 44 Elm St., so the town might have to ask voters for another exclusion to fund that project.

“This project has faced significant public backlash over the last couple years. There has been a lot of whiplash on price,” one meeting attendee said.

One member of the Public Safety Facilities Committee said that he did not support the project because he felt that the condition of the police station does not necessitate an entirely new building.

The fire department currently uses the same building as the police department, so operational costs will rise to maintain two different public safety buildings if the new police station project is greenlit. Advisory Committee Member Tom Callahan dismissed concerns about higher operational costs, saying that a new, “modern” public safety building is required.

“We have a building that is far outdated. Our operational costs are going to go up, but we need it,” he said. “People just need to face that at some point you have to upgrade your facilities.”

He also worried that delaying the project further would only cause construction costs to increase—estimates for construction costs have risen by millions since this time last year.

Chase Colasurdo, a Cohasset police officer and the president of the patrolman’s union, called the station “abysmal.”

“My ultimate goal as the president is retention, the health and the safety of my officers. The current facility… is not somewhere where I feel that my officers are being appreciated,” he said. “We have an excellent group of officers. We're going to lose them if we continue to underappreciate them by making us work at a facility that is not up to standard.”

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