Police department to take over community room in Peters Township
The Peters Township Police Department soon will take over the entire building in which it is located.
At its most recent meeting, township council voted to discontinue the long-standing use of a community room within the building for public functions.
The room, though, will remain a polling place for residents of Peters’ B-1 Voting Precinct. This year, the location moved from Peters Creek United Presbyterian Church.
“That space accommodated that community activity extremely well. There’s certainly adequate parking, and there’s easy ADA accessibility to that space,” township manager Paul Lauer said about federal Americans With Disability Act regulations, “as well as restrooms.”
Prior to council’s vote, he expressed support for carrying on the practice of conducting parks and recreation programs in the room, along with renting it out for various activities.
“I always think that public spaces are best when they’re in use. And I think if what you do is to simply return it over and restrict its use to only the police department, those recreational programs that it serves may not find a new home,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that in the 16 years it’s been this way, there has never been an incident with regard to security.”
Chief Doug Grimes provided council members with a list of reasons the space should be for police business only, with safety as the top priority. He pointed out the main part of the building underwent renovation to make it more secure.
“When that’s being rented out,” Grimes said about the community room, “that opens up the building for anybody to try to gain access.”
Other considerations, he said, include the noise generated by public activities while officers are conducting business, plus the room’s frequent use for departmental matters.
Grimes also cited the potential effect of an aquatic center planned by the township as part of the soon-to-be-developed Rolling Hills Park.
“Once you put in that pool, the number of incidents that we’re going to handle is going to increase, I think, relatively significantly,” he said. “Look at the homes that are being built in the township and the growth of the township. Our incidents continue to escalate insofar as numbers. The police department is not going to get any smaller, and it certainly is absolutely out of room. The evidence room is packed, jam-packed.”
The same is true about storage spaces, he told council.
“Something either has to be built or changed in how we do business,” he said.
Council members agreed with making a change, except for Frank Arcuri, who voted against the measure.
Lauer said activities are scheduled in the room through the end of the year.
“I would suggest if we’re doing this that we allow people to complete their programs, as long as it doesn’t create a COVID problem, in which case we would move them out,” he said.
“We need to be having discussions with them about access to those spaces,” Lauer said.