CONA toured the facility Friday, an outing scheduled prior to
the news of the City giving up on trying to solve the problem.
It is bad, it is real bad.
CONA has not formed an official position yet, it shall
certainly be the main topic of discussion at next Saturday's PSC Meeting.
If OSHA or the Fire Marshal were to objectively inspect this
facility there would be a new tent city in Saint Petersburg only the police
would be the ones living in it not the homeless.
You can't flush the toilets on the top floor, pipes are too corroded
to get enough water pressure. Way too much poisonous poly vinyl chloride and
mold hide above the false ceilings. People are getting sick and are worried
about cancer, a few too many have gotten it already.
I have to think our elected officials who gave up on this, have
not seen what we have seen. No Possible Way.
The evidence storage is below ground in the bowels of this
old building. Creatively cataloged and jammed in each nook and cranny of a
building built of an old technique that rivals that of a mud thatch hut. Not
one piece of rebar to be found. One good storm overpowering the City drainage
sewers makes the building's Eisenhower era sump pumps the last defense. Defense against a disaster waiting to corrupt enough evidence
to put a whole lot of really bad people back on the streets.
The banks of Motorola Astro communications gear that connects
our calls for help to the police that save us sit precariously, protected by
plywood boarded windows, a leaky roof and thin deteriorating exterior walls.
If the City is not creative enough to come up with the
needed $134 per citizen needed to bridge the gap between what we have and what
we need to build the proposed station - then we need to get creative and come up with
a suitable alternative solution, below is a newer construction technique that
may cost half for a large hardened facility than standard techniques, it has
the added of benefit of being extremely energy efficient, enough so the energy
savings may pay for the build out cost in 20 years. It is time to be creative,
it is worth a look.
But the bottom line:
But the bottom line:
I don't have a problem coming up with my $134, heck I'd pay
10 times that tomorrow if asked. The people out there willing to take a bullet
for us: certainly are worth it. The current building is so old it was built with segregated
bathrooms. It needs to go away like that era, immediately if not yesterday.
