Livonia — Livonia plans to put a $150 million bond issue before voters in August to build a new police station, renovate the city’s five fire stations and hopefully pave the way to create a downtown in the city.
The Livonia City Council is set to weigh ballot language later this month for a 1.43 millage that voters would decide on during the Aug. 5 primary to pay for the bonds. The measure would cost a homeowner $1.43 per $1,000 of taxable value of property.
City officials say their public safety facilities need to be updated and don’t meet the modern needs of both agencies.
Tours of Livonia’s current police and fire headquarters, both of which were built in the 1960s, reveal aging, cramped facilities. Fire trucks are taller and longer than they were when the stations were built, leaving about an inch of clearance in the garages for the current trucks equipped with ladders to pull in.
“We have just been trying to pack more and more and more into the space that we’ve had for 50, 60 years,” said said Fire Chief Robert Jennison. “And I can’t see where we can make it any more efficient that we have. We’re busting at the seams.”
The fire stations, which would stay in their current locations but be renovated if the millage is approved, also don’t have facilities specifically designed to accommodate women firefighters since the department had none until about 17 years ago, said Jennison. And there aren’t enough showers for a whole crew to use at once, meaning some firefighters have to wait to rinse off hazardous materials when they come back from a fire or EMS call.
Livonia Councilmember Rob Donovic, who chairs the council’s capital outlay and infrastructure Committee, said the city intends to build new municipal buildings that will last well into the future. He believes the council has worked hard to make the planning process for a new city center transparent and responsible with taxpayer money.
The buildings “need to do their job,” he said. “…We need to make sure we’re doing a good, efficient job on something that’s going to last 100 years into our future,” he said.
At the Livonia Police Department at Farmington Road, south of Five Mile, Capt. Eric Marcotte with the Livonia Police Department said the department’s disjointed layout has been a function of just putting things where they fit as the department has grown.
The current police department complex is 55,000 square feet, according to Marcotte. It includes one part that originally housed the city’s water department and another segment added on to connect it with the original police headquarters.
Records for major cases are housed in a dingy room in the building’s basement, with a crumbling ceiling and dangling electrical wires. A few of the department’s special teams have large lockers to fit their gear, including the honor guard members and officers who are part of the regional Western Wayne County SWAT. But rank-and-file offices have narrow metal lockers, reminiscent of a high school.
“There just comes a point in time where the men and women that work here deserve better. They’re out there risking their lives; they’re out there for 12 hours a day,” said Capt. Eric Marcotte.
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