Although it won't actually be open to the public until January, the Prince George RCMP will be taking the local media on a tour of the new detachment this afternoon as part of an unveiling ceremony featuring RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson.
The $39-million headquarters has already won an award for its impressive use of wood and its sleek mix of steel and glass has generated praise for its beauty but also criticism as the new Taj Mahal cop shop. For some reason, some local residents are under the impression that a beautiful building costs more than an ugly one and that the Soviet-style hunk of concrete at the end of Brunswick Street (the current detachment, not the public library - that's another story about architectural idiocy) is more appropriate to house police than a spacious, modern facility on Victoria.
The folks whining about the steep cost of the new detachment are looking at the wrong building. If they went on a tour of the old detachment, their ire towards city council would not be about spending so much on the new facility but what the heck took them so long to build a new RCMP detachment and why was it not built in conjunction with the North District headquarters at Fifth and Ospika.
Once inside the old detachment, residents would find a building in appalling condition and would honestly wonder how officers have been able to conduct their duties. Offices are cramped and most of them are windowless, hallways are narrow and staff, both civilians and members of the force, are cut off from each other, unable to collaborate. The single meeting room is constantly full, stifling the efforts of teams working larger, more complicated cases.
Members must take arrested people one at a time up to the cells on a rickety metal contraption that resembles an elevator. There is so little storage and working space that some of the cells have been taken for that purpose, while an awkward, improvised system is in place to keep male and female prisoners separate from one another.
Sophisticated new investigative techniques and equipment to gather and store evidence have been either kept offsite or forced into difficult spaces.
In other words, the old detachment is so bad it is actually an obstacle towards effective law enforcement.
The amount of money needed to renovate it would have been outrageous and wasteful. It would have demanded officers to still do their jobs effectively while jackhammers were at work shattering concrete and that would have been just to bring the cells up to the current safety code and to install a new elevator.
The new detachment is modern and efficient in every way. It has been built to the gold LEED standard (leadership in energy and environmental design), meaning it has numerous energy-saving features. It is a 21st century police facility, armed with the technology, the equipment and the space for a modern police force to do its work. Instead of their headquarters holding them back, officers will soon be working in a space that will help them save time and money, not to mention serve and protect the public better.
The complaints about the cost and the beauty of the new detachment were always unwarranted, especially since all of the newer public buildings in Prince George have been built with similar flair. The new Duchess Park secondary is also a lavish improvement over its predecessor. The courthouse is an extravagant structure, both inside and out. Except for the student residences, every building at UNBC, even the library, are flashy odes to modern design.
As residents, we have every right to demand the best from our police force.
In return, it seems only fair to provide the men and women willing to put on the uniform with the best facility we can for them to do their jobs.
