Salt Lake City Leaders Launch Public Safety Bond Campaign

08.17.2009 by Elizabeth Ziegler

SLCPD Chief Chris Burbank explains why the city needs a new public safety complex. Photo by Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News)  Salt Lake City leaders launched a publicity effort today for Proposition 1, a $125 million bond for a new public safety complex voters will decide on this November. They plan to spend $75,000 educating voters on why they believe it’s necessary.  Police Chief Chris Burbank says the poor condition of the existing facility is just one of the reasons the city needs the new complex.

“While it is significant that the building is crumbling and it has some problems, some limitations, I think the most exciting thing about going into the future is that this building was never designed to be a public safety building,” Burbank says. “We are limited in our ability to do creative policing, creative fire prevention, because of the building.”

Burbank says the proposed public safety complex will make the city safer if an emergency or natural disaster strikes. But it would also increase property taxes at the same time home values are declining and other taxes are going up.

Mayor Ralph Becker says the project would have been put on hold until later if the city could afford to do so. But he believes it can’t wait any longer without putting the entire community at risk.

“If we are not responding well when there’s an emergency, then we are rightfully criticized. And this facility, these facilities in combination, really will enable us simply to do our jobs,” Becker says.

Proposition 1 would allow the city to replace the current public safety building and also build a dedicated emergency operations center designed to withstand disasters. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security designated Salt Lake City as one of 62 cities at high risk for natural or man-made disasters.