Colorado Springs mayor, police chief host tour of CSPD training academy amid plans to build new facility
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- New Mayor Yemi Mobolade and police Chief Adrian Vasquez spent 90 minutes Thursday showing why the city badly needs a new and expanded facility to train new and existing officers.
Mobolade and Vasquez took local media on a tour of the police training academy, near the intersection of Platte Avenue and Murray Boulevard, on the city's east side.
The goal was to show the space limitations that keep police from providing ongoing training as often as the chief would like, and as current officers are asking for, as the city continues to grow.
The situation also limits the effectiveness in getting recruits through the police academy fast enough to fill a constant deficit of officers, and balance the number who leave because of attrition.
Mobolade said that the cost of a new facility would range from $16 million (to renovate an existing building) to $40 million (for new construction), and hopes that voters in November will help pay some of the cost by allowing the city to keep $4.75 million in excess revenue instead of having it refunded to citizens.
The City Council is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to put the so-called TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) retention on the ballot.
"If the voters say no to the TABOR retention, then we'll find another way to get the project started," Mobolade said. "It's that important for us to get started on it, and that money would give us a good jump start."
Vasquez said that the project would allow all police training and academy functions to be at one location for the first time.
"We also use the four police precincts, the Police Operations Center and we borrow space at a number of places, including Fort Carson," he explained. "We can't even include our community service officers as part of what we want to do here, but we should be thinking about what their future needs are."
The current facility was renovated from a former commercial business and opened in 1994, a year before Vasquez graduated from the academy.
He said that a new facility would allow his department to start a new academy class every 15 weeks -- instead of just twice a year -- and run some of the classes concurrently, instead of individually.
"That's the quickest and best way to fill our 70 officer openings and get to our authorized strength of 818," he said. "Once we get there, I'm going to ask the mayor for more resources to increase that, because 818 won't be enough as the city keeps growing."
The chief responded to some Council concerns that the training academy situation should have never reached this point.
"No one likes to pay more taxes," he said. "We had a different way of looking at it back then. What we're trying to do is fairly expensive, but we've evaluated it and realized that it's a solid plan moving forward."
Meanwhile, the mayor said that he has a personal stake in providing more police resources.
"My first-grader, she wants to be a police officer."
