News - Local News

POSTED: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009

Ferndale council OKs work on police station bids, $1 million for new library

Citizens group opposes both projects

FERNDALE - City Council members have moved one step closer to a new police station and library.

The council on Monday, Nov. 16, approved a six-month deadline for an architect to prepare bid documents to renovate the city's library to become a new police headquarters. That means it could be eight months or so before officials have bid specifications ready for construction firms to review.

The council OK'd the timeline 4-3, with Steve Malpezzi, Connie Faria and Lloyd Zimmerman opposed.

The council also agreed to seek bids to renovate the former Boys & Girls Club building by Pioneer Park as a potential temporary home for Ferndale Library while the current library is remodeled into a police station.

Once the Boys & Girls Club site is retrofitted, the city would give library officials 30 days notice to move. That notice was too short for Faria, who said that's why she voted against moving forward on the projects she favors.

An architect hired by the city estimates it would cost about $5.2 million for an 18,000-square-foot police station. Council members discussed smaller options, and hope the trend of construction bids coming in below estimate continues.

Meanwhile, the council voted 5-2, with Malpezzi and Zimmerman opposed, to commit $1 million to a new, permanent library. The council previously approved working to buy property owned by Sam Boulos for a new library north of City Hall on Main Street.

Malpezzi said the city's 2010 budget is vague about how the city would cover the $1 million, and said the projects are too "tied together."

Under a proposed deal for the library land on Main Street, the city would pay Boulos about $110,000 and give him the city-owned parcel that was once the site of Ferndale Drug Store, and an adjacent property. The city has appraised its properties at about $420,000 and the Boulos property at about $527,000, said City Administrator Greg Young.

Young said the anonymous donor who pledged $1 million for a new library through Whatcom Community Foundation would pay the $110,000 as part of the pledge.

Library supporters would still need to raise at least another $1 million, maybe more.

A citizens group has cropped up to oppose both projects. Walter Haugen and Art Rosja, among others, created Don't Bankrupt Ferndale because they say the city is overextending itself financially. Haugen also said the city doesn't need more police or an improved and larger police station.

Haugen is a Ferndale resident and a self-described "community activist" for the past 40 years. Rosja, a Custer resident, has fought the Custer Elementary School renovation bond election and has volunteered to help build a Ferndale skate park.

City Treasurer Mark Peterson said the city already has outlined how it would afford about $8 million in bonding capacity for both projects. Part of the ability to pay, he said, would come from a solid-waste tax increase the council approved a few months ago.

Initial payments on council-approved bonds, which don't need voter approval, wouldn't begin until the 2011 budget cycle, Peterson said.