Discussion on revised police department plans

By Dana Casadei

Finalizing a plan of action and next steps for the Bloomfield Township Police Department space needs continued at the board of trustees meeting on Monday, July 27, with treasurer Michael Schostak bringing adjusted proposals and estimated operations costs to the board. 

While Schostak said the two plans he handed to the board looked identical from those discussed at the July 13 trustees meeting, there were a few highlighted differences in the high-level overview with a large portion focused around cost. 

In the original discussion, proposal one would tear down the 90-year-old township hall and police building and replace it with a 90,000-square-foot building, add a park, and build a $4.9 million public safety training facility on the township’s Golf Drive property. The new building would also be occupied by the community affairs department, allowing for the renovation of the township’s animal shelter. 

With the changes made to this proposal, Schostak is now proposing the building be 82,500-square-feet as opposed to 90,000-square-feet, a reduction in the animal shelter’s estimated cost, eliminating the new training facility and increasing the capital reserve to reflect what they’re probably going to be at in the next two years.

Schostak said that they no longer have a need for a new training facility because there is one being built in Rochester Hills that local agencies, including Bloomfield Township police, will be able to use. This was confirmed when Schostak spoke with Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard.

“I’m still in favor, even more so now, of the new building,” said trustee Valerie Murray. “It would allow for this building to function when the new one was being built, as opposed to living through renovations.”

The department’s space needs were originally brought up at the board of trustees meeting on March 23, then again at meetings on April 13, April 28 and most recently at the board’s last meeting on Monday, July 13.

Currently, the police department is operating in about 22,00-square-feet in two buildings. The square footage includes not just office space, but hallways and stairways as well. Bloomfield Police Chief James Gallagher said then that they have converted every conference room they could into another useful space, and in some cases, conference rooms that were once just for the department are now shared with other departments. There’s also no soft interview rooms or room for two additional cubicles to be added for traffic officers. 


According to the space needs assessment conducted by RedStone, a police department of Bloomfield Township’s size should operate across 58,000-60,000 square feet to be the most efficient, including hallways and stairwells, and would put operation space at about 45,000-square feet.


The bond size originally for proposal one would have been $74.9 million with a .5632 mill tax that would cost the average taxpayer about $146.43 annually, officials said. The total cost for the updated proposals would be $60.1 million for proposal one, and $50.7 million for proposal two, with the bond sizes being $60.8 million and $51.3 million. The first year mileage rates would be .4 mills or .32 mills with the updates, which is a difference of about $20 a year for the average taxpayer and a cut from the original amount.

Trustees Neal Barnett and Chris Kolinski both had concerns with the first proposal as it was originally presented, primarily around the cost and that it consisted of too many wants, like the new training facility, but seemed less hesitant with the proposed changes.


“If you continue to make a case that it’s not a big difference between making a new building and keeping this one, it makes it easier for me to move in the direction of a larger, combined building,” said trustee Neal Barnett.


Noah Mehalski, public works director, provided the board with some operation cost estimates if they were to go with proposal two, which would focus on renovating township hall and building a new and smaller police department building instead of tearing down township hall. A two-story building would be about 55,000-square-feet.


In Mehalski’s estimate there would be approximately $2 million for unknown issues, such as possible foundation issues with the current township hall/police building or if the roof were to cave in. His estimate also included an additional $6.7 million estimate for general operations costs over the next 15-20 years, including items like building’s three HVAC systems elevator upgrades, window replacements and general interior repairs.


“These numbers could be high or low; we don’t know where inflation is going to go,” Schostak said. “Plus, there’s an unknown variable as well. We don’t know what structural damage we could find, what’s load bearing and what’s not.”


The original bond size for proposal two would have been $59.4 million with an annual millage rate of .4552 mills.


“When we looked at your original numbers, there was such a big gap, this now narrows that gap,” Kolinski said. “It makes me more considerate of town hall and the police station together, and I’m not opposed to either one.” 


This was only an open discussion and nothing was finalized, including if this item was going to be on the November ballot for residents to vote on. If the board plans to do that time is running out; a decision will need to be made by the beginning of August to get it in front of voters.