WASCO, Calif. (KERO) — While the council approved the purchase, there are still hurdles to clear and funding to be filled before the building can come to fruition.
- At Tuesday's Wasco City Council meeting, the council approved a $1.1 million purchase of a plot of land across the street from city hall that is slated to be used to consolidate city services and create a new station for the Wasco Police Department.
- According to Tuesday's City Council agenda, "Funding for the purchase of the property is supported by approximately $480,000 in remaining ARPA funds, a $25,000 deposit from the General Fund, and the balance from the $5M State of California earmark designated for Wasco Police Department development."
- While the purchase received the go-ahead from City Council, there are still hurdles to clear, like escrow and funding for the future building, before Wasco can assume ownership of the property and break ground on the project.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
I want you to guess how old parts of Wasco City Hall are. I'm Sam Hoyle, your Wasco neighborhood reporter. If you guessed about 80 years old, you're probably right. City staff estimates that parts of those buildings were built back in the 1940s, which is why at Tuesday's city council meeting, the city of Wasco took its very first step in attempting to replace those buildings.
The offices for the city of Wasco are… I don't like to use the word old, let's call them aged. And not only that, they're spread out with a state highway intersecting them.
"As we were about to go live with the police department, that the existing facility we were going to outgrow very quickly, so at least a year that we've been serious about trying to acquire that property,” said Wasco City Manager Scott Hurlbert.
At Tuesday night's city council meeting, the council adopted a resolution to buy this plot of land across the street from Wasco City Hall for 1.1 million dollars, with nearly half a million being American Rescue Plan Act Funding, 25 thousand from the City’s general fund, and the remainder of it from the city's 5 million dollar earmark from the state to get the police department up and running.
"The highest priority is for police facility, but also we have our city staff, non-police departments, all the other departments are spread out in three different buildings in three different blocks down here. So I think the longer term vision, again, once we locate funding to do it, would be a city hall where all the staff can be together in one building," said Hurlbert.
Wasco Police Chief Charlie Fivecoat said during his time with the Kern County Sheriff's Office, he was a commander for KCSO at the Wasco Substation back in the 1990s and he said the buildings were… aged.. even then.
“The building was obviously dated even then,” said Fivecoat. “We're trying to put all these officers in here and run a police operation which includes a 911, dispatch center, which they had never had before. So we've actually taken a much larger organization than the sheriff had here, and put it into the same infrastructure, and it's pretty tight.”
Now, just because they adopted that resolution doesn't mean that they can go shovel to earth immediately. There are still a handful of things that need to happen before Wasco can get this project off the ground, namely, going through escrow. Now, as always, we'll keep you up to date on air and online with more information on this project. In Wasco, I'm Sam Hoyle, your neighborhood reporter.
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