South Tallahassee residents give officials an earful on proposed move of TPD headquarters
Karl Etters
City officials were met by a crowd of skeptical residents Tuesday night at a town hall meeting gathering community input on the proposed location of a new police department.
About 200 people attended the meeting at the south side Walker Ford Community Center, just a few blocks from the corner of Monroe Street and Orange Avenue where the Tallahassee Police Department’s new public safety campus is likely to go.
It was the second meeting this week discussing the proposal to move TPD out of its Seventh Avenue building where it has been headquartered for the past 47 years. A meeting was held Monday night at the Tallahassee Senior Center where similar concerns were leveled.
City commissioners only listened as dozens of people, the vast majority against the project, voiced their concerns over gentrification, mistrust of law enforcement and the $60-million price tag they say would come with putting the police station in south Tallahassee.
“We need a new police station,” said O’Neal “Bossman” Jackson, who lives on North Macomb Street. “If the city is going to bring economic impact other than just a police station, I would be in favor.”
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The city is proposing turning a shopping plaza that is home to a dozen or so businesses, including one of two grocery stores south of Gaines Street, into what it calls a public safety campus.
The idea is part police station, part community center, that would include public meeting spaces, police training facilities, a park and basketball courts.
To do so however, the city will have to relocate the businesses that call the shopping complex home.
That rubs people who live in the area the wrong way.
“We can do much more with that $60 million than just put it into a building to house a police department,” said Verda Owens, who lives a few blocks from the proposed site. “There is just so much need. We need choices. We need grocery stores. We need other businesses. You’re taking away jobs and opportunities that people currently have.”
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Owens and others pointed to a historical mistrust of the police department among black residents of the city. There are already cameras throughout the Bond Neighborhood, she said, but crime happens all over the city.
“That’s what we need to really get to and look at the history,” she said. “Get to the root of the problem and that is the mistrust of the police department.”
But while many voiced their displeasure with the proposal and the cost, others said they were firmly in favor of a new police station.
Former city official Dot Inman-Johnson pointed to two discrepancies in arguments made by others. Some voiced concerns that the money could be used to build a school.
That money comes from the Legislature in the form of Public Education Capital Outlay and is allocated through the school district. Others said the funding could be used to acquire more healthy food options.
The Winn-Dixie on Paul Russell Road closed in June 2017 because of “underperformance.” Inman-Johnson said that has little to do with the discussions surrounding the police station move, which began in 2015.
“It closed because there wasn’t enough activity,” she said. “There wasn’t enough population center to keep that grocery store open.”
The timing of the proposal and placement of the campus could help to heal years of mistrust between residents and police, she added.
“It is real and is needed,” said Inman-Johnson, a city commissioner and mayor during the early 1990s. “Criminal justice reform isn’t surveillance, it is putting the police in the community to build relationships so there isn’t the kind of distrust people are talking about.”
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Last week city commissioners toured the current TPD headquarters where $1 million has been spent over the past four years on maintenance costs to the ailing building.
Mayor John Dailey said after the tour it was apparent TPD needed an upgraded facility.
The town hall meetings brought to a better light the concerns of people that will be directly affected should the proposal go through, he said.
“Number one, the public wants to be involved in the decision made by the city commission,” said Dailey, who noted that four of the five commissioners have only been seated for three months. “Number, two we should continuously strive to have the best relationship that we can between the city government, the police department and our community. This is part of restoring trust in City Hall.”
Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter