Geneva committee recommends $59.4 million police station referendum

A group of Geneva alderpersons has recommended that the city place a question on the March ballot that would ask voters to approve a plan to borrow $59.4 million for a new police facility.

The alderpersons have also recommended asking voters whether they support the city becoming home rule in a referendum that could appear on a ballot within two years.

At Monday’s Geneva Committee of the Whole meeting, alderpersons voted 7-2 in favor of pursuing the police facility question. Third Ward Alderperson Larry Furnish was absent.

First Ward Alderperson Anaïs Bowring and Fourth Ward Alderperson Martha Paschke cast the two no votes.

The alderpersons voted 9-0 in favor of asking voters to support home rule. But they sought to push that question out as far as 2028 to provide time for voter education. They also did not want another referendum so soon after asking for a bond issue.

The city council will need to take final action on whether to pursue the referendums.

Fourth Ward Alderperson Amy Mayer said the police station “has been remodeled to the point where it can no longer serve.”

“When I toured four years ago … they were not able to pull a police car in and have two people assist moving somebody from the police car. They have to do things outside and move people into the police station,” Mayer said. “These are things that are serious problems.”

Mayer said she supported the top-dollar option. Any funds approved but not used for a full-sized garage and a firing range could be transferred for fire department facility needs, especially Fire Station No. 2.

If voters approve the ballot measure, it would add $272 to the property tax bill of a house valued at $350,000, or $23 a month, officials said.

City Administrator Alexandra Voigt provided some history about the police facility, saying that it was first a car dealership. It was then home to the city’s fire department and emergency dispatch — Tri-Com Central Dispatch — with the police department on the first floor.

“It’s my understanding that the Geneva Police Department has not had a facility that was built to be a police facility,” Voigt said.

Voigt said policing has changed in the last five years, as the council has had to vote for additional equipment, such as body-worn cameras and computers.

“We don’t just need a car and a person anymore,” Voigt said. “They have a lot of technology and equipment that they are responsible for maintaining, understanding how to use — all of those require space. Any time you have technology, you are introducing a public records component, which means you have technology space, you need extra people, there’s extra time, and all of that takes up physical space as well.”

The current facility also does not accommodate revised police training requirements, so police used other spaces in city buildings when available, Voigt said.

“It doesn’t create the ability for us to have a consistent program of training that meets these state requirements for our officers to be certified,” Voigt said.

Bowring and Paschke supported going for a home rule referendum first. Home rule communities have more flexibility in financing, such as with sales tax. Municipalities become home rule either by population — 25,000 — or by voter approval. With fewer than 22,000 people, Geneva needs voter approval.

First Ward Alderperson William Malecki said he supported home rule “more for local control than anything.” Malecki also supported going to a referendum for the police facility first, as construction costs increase every six months.

“I think getting the police station … out to voters and getting it approved sooner rather than later is something that is needed,” Malecki said. “We need to get that feather in the cap and to keep rolling.”