Category archive

Frankfort Police Department - page 3

City Eyes $20 Million to Build Police Station and Aquatic Center

Published on

FRANKFORT, Ind. – With all six Frankfort police station construction bids rejected by the Board of Works, each being at least $2 million over the appropriated cost of $8.5 million, and still wanting to have a dedicated facility for the Police Department, the Frankfort City Council held a work session after its Monday council meeting to discuss how to accomplish that goal.

The result. Approach the project using a 20-plus-year-old Indiana law allowing city and county governments to utilize an alternative procurement method to deliver a public project by way of a public-private partnership. The alternative procurement method is called BOT, an acronym for build, operate, transfer, and allows a government body to have greater control over the upfront cost and allows for negotiating costs while not having to rejects bids and starting the process over. The latter being the traditional way of doing a government project.

BOT also allows for combining multiple projects into a single, larger project with the desired outcome of lowering costs by developers bidding to do both projects.

With the information of combining projects, the council via consensus will now add the aquatic center to the police station project – an official vote could occur at its next meeting on August 9. All bids associated with the aquatic center had previously been rejected by the BOW due to fiscal uncertainty during the pandemic.

“I think it is something we all want to see to move forward and as quickly as possible,” said Frankfort Mayor Judy Sheets addressing the council. “This is what our constituents want, they expect us to be out here working for them and I think it is time we just got to move. We got to get going on this.”

The single, combined project would have a total projected cost of $20 Million based on financial assumptions presented by Gary Smith of Reedy Financial Group, the city’s financial consultant.

Smith provided the council with an affordability report for the two projects showing current account balances of the respective budget funds that will be used to make yearly payments once financing is secured as well as information on how much the city could afford for each based on future city revenue projections. The project costs discussed for the police station and aquatic center were $9.5 million and $10.5 million, respectively.

Council president Eric Woods remarked after Smith’s presentation, “looks like the police station is fine, but the pool is going to require a little extra.”

Smith noted he removed the 4-lane lap pool from the project based on the $1.25 million cost for that portion alone as the city would not be able to afford this based on any of the financial assumptions provided in the report. The lap pool costs were provided by Kyle Lueken of HWC Engineering, the firm the city is using to handle the aquatic center project.

Prior to the August 9 council meeting, much legal work will need to be completed. A timeline both city attorney Les Bergum and Richard Starkey with Barnes & Thornburg, outside city counsel, noted as complex due to the BOT consisting of multiple projects, funding sources, architects, and holding entities.

Due to the Indiana Constitution that places a limit on municipalities on the maximum debt ratio a municipality can borrow, the city will need to use “legal fiction” – a term used by attorneys to pass taxpayer-owned assets to a third party to hold for the purpose of securing funding for the life of the bond. Currently, the City has two such projects utilizing such entities – one for Old Stoney and the other for Prairie Creek Park.

Starkey noted, “going to go through the Redevelopment Authority for the pool and the [Frankfort Police Station] Building Corporation for the police station” for the purpose of holding the assets. While Bergum discussed the complexities and time associated with completing the legal work, “It is going to take some time to put this RFP together from my point because it involves two projects, two funding sources, and two architects.”

The City Council will meet next on Monday, August 9 at 7 pm in the council chambers located in Old Stoney.

Frankfort Code Enforcement Officers Starting Campaign

Published on

FRANKFORT, Ind. – Recognizing that house numbers are not just convenient for finding addresses but a necessary tool for emergency responders to use to ensure they can locate residents in need of assistance, city officials are asking residents to confirm their house numbers are easily read from the street.

“Precious minutes can be lost during emergency responses when officers are responding to a call and have difficulty locating the correct address,” Frankfort Police Chief Scott Shoemaker explains. “Having clear numbers posted on a residence can make a significant difference in reducing response time in an emergency.”

City code enforcement officers are starting a campaign to inform property owners of the ordinance requiring house numbers. City officials hope to avoid ticketing residents and intend for this campaign to reduce the number of unnumbered homes in Frankfort.

According to the city ordinances, placing numbers on a mailbox or curb is not sufficient. The ordinance states, “Each structure to which a street number has been assigned shall have such number displayed in a position easily observed and readable from the public right-of-way or accessible road.”

Fire Chief John Kirby recommends residents consider the following when placing numbers on their homes:

* Use numbers that contrast with the background.
* Be sure that the view of the numbers is not obstructed by shrubs, trees, or decorations.
* Numbers should be clearly visible when approaching from either side of the house.
* Script numbers or numbers that are spelled out in words should be avoided as they are difficult to read quickly from the street.

Mayor Judy Sheets explains, “House numbers impact the ability of public safety to respond to the needs of our community. We are encouraging all Frankfort residents to ensure their residence has house numbers posted clearly so that our emergency responders can locate homes promptly and provide emergency assistance without delay.”

City of Frankfort Acquires Land for New Police Department

Published on

FRANKFORT, Ind – A three-and-a-half-year search for the best location to construct a $7.2 million new Frankfort police department came to an end Monday, at the Skanta Theater located in the Frankfort Community Public Library when the Frankfort City Council received word from Frankfort Police Chief Scott Shoemaker – the Community Foundation of Howard County had accepted the City’s offer to purchase land for $200,000 that morning.

The 7.71 acres of land is located on the northside of State Rd 28 West between Victory Chapel to the east and Brock Grain Systems to the west. The parcel is bounded by State Rd 28 West to the south and the railroad tracks to the north.

The decision to make the offer came during the September 28th meeting of the City Council after having exhausted other alternatives, such as remodeling the current police department, the use of the old city power location on Washington Ave, the former Kyger school property on Third St, a parcel located at the airport, and most recently the old CVS west building.

The money to purchase the land will be spread out over two-years – the first, a payment to be held in escrow within 15-days of Monday in the amount of $100,000, and the remaining balance in 2021.

“I’m excited,” said Frankfort Mayor Judy Sheets. “We did get the approval today (Monday) from the Community Foundation to accept our offer. It was $200,000. We will give them a $100,000 this year, and then next year in February we will go ahead and give the other $100,000 and we’ll take possession of the land.”

Chief Shoemaker is hopeful the timeline to send the project out to bid can be leveraged with the work that has previously been completed by the architects – KJG out of Lafayette, Indiana, and Zimmerman Architectural Studios based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The two firms have previously completed multiple designs of a Frankfort police department dating back to September 2018.

“I have asked the architects to put together a proposal of what our net costs are for them,” said Chief Shoemaker while addressing the Council members. “We have spent a lot of time and a lot of money on this in the last three, three and a half years.

“So, I have asked them to use what space needs analysis we’ve already done and put that on that spot (the land being purchased) in terms of us being able to see it being and then we will go from there. That way we don’t spend a lot of time, money, and effort on making a lot of drastic changes.”

After the meeting, Chief Shoemaker addressed how he envisions the layout of the new police department.

“Now, we move on to designing a building that will go on this particular spot,” said Chief Shoemaker. “All the buildings we’ve designed up to this point were one-story long buildings. We’re going to look at a two-story building and then have a lot of space in the back to have a maintenance area and a parking area. So that is really exciting.”

Chief Shoemaker continued by speaking about how the department would like to see evidence stored.

“We will look at the layout – we want it to be closer,” said Chief Shoemaker. “We want short term evidence to go into a locker, and that locker will only open from the other side – the lab people would take that evidence out. Right now we can’t do any of that. We’ll have to work within the budget. Last looked, we had about $7.2 to $7.5 million to build this.”

Chief Shoemaker concluded by saying, “Hopefully, they can do that in four months.” The “they” and “that” relates to the architects being able to have a finished design that can be spent out to bid. “And, breaking ground in June or July (2021).”

 

 

 

 

C & R Catering Honors Clinton County Sheriff’s Office and Frankfort Police Department

Published on

Local law enforcement agencies were honored today by a local catering firm, C & R Catering from Jefferson, with complimentary meals consisting of homemade chicken & noodles, mashed potatoes, and buttered corn.

“They do so much for us, I wanted to say thank you,” said Rodney Mounts owner of C & R Catering.

In all 93 meals were delivered. The Clinton County Sheriff’s Office received 65 meals and the Frankfort Police Department received 28 meals.

Assisting Rodney today was J & T Cleaning and Connecting Point Church.

1 2 3
Go to Top