I fully support the police goal of a larger, up-to-date facility for our growing police department. I am NOT in favor of the Top Field proposed location.
The Top Field is currently the playground used by elementary school children. I would like to hear what will replace the playground. The town is proposing to trade the Stanley Park Bike Park to the school. When the bike park was first proposed, modifications to the Stanley Park Master Plan were required before it could be built. I assume that deeding the bike park to the school district will require a similar Master Plan modification and public meetings. Does the school district even want the bike park?
I did a little research, and it appears that the current police facilities have about a two-thirds-acre footprint, including parking for more than 30 police vehicles, 18 staff vehicles, and the building.
The town currently owns two lots adjacent to the Stanley Hotel entrance. One is 1.26 acres, and the other is 1.48 acres. Each of these lots is about double the size of the current police facility, and together, they provide the desired square footage.
If we are willing to sacrifice recreation land for the police upgrade (playground and bike park), how about taking a little off the fifth fairway at the northwest corner of the 18-hole golf course?
It is already town land, and there are 180 acres of land at the 18-hole golf course. Shortening one hole at the golf course by 100 yards (from 370 to 270 yards) could yield two acres for the police, tripling their available land. Only about half of the land at the golf course’s northwest corner is part of the fifth hole. Much of the northwest corner of the golf course land is not irrigated and is dug up periodically for maintenance projects, so it is not really part of the golf course anyway.
Or how about using some of the fairgrounds property? There are a couple of areas at the fairgrounds that seem underutilized. Both the northwest and southeast corners of the fairgrounds support little, if any, actual fairground activity.
I would certainly like to see a more comprehensive analysis of all of the town holdings, with pros and cons of each potential site. I don’t know who is advocating for the Top Field/Stanley Park land swap proposal, but I don’t think it makes much sense!
Todd Plummer is a resident of Estes Park and an elected member of the Estes Park Sanitation District.
There is another location that may be a viable option, but it depends on property lines and land ownership. Larimer County Assessors GIS data shows that the parcel the Fire Station is owned by the TOEP, and there is ~4 acres of open area east of the fire station. The only problem is that Larimer County parcel data for non-taxpaying entities (USFS, RMNP, TOEP, BuRec) is horrendously inaccurate, and they haven’t fixed very obvious errors they were notified about DECADES ago. The Assessors data shows the BuRec Power plant on the same TOEP parcel as the fire station, and the parcel immediately north (the west end of Lake Estes and the west end of the nine hole golf course) is listed as owned by “ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK SERVICE” (obviously wrong!), so this would require a lot of property record research to determine if the land east of the fire station is available or not.
Are you kidding me,a new police station. Why is it that the government is always wanting to spend money that they don’t have on super fancy new facilities that they don’t need? We do not need or want the police station by the Elementary school for sure. Why put young children at risk by it being there? It isn’t even a central location for our Town, it’s on the edge. The station is much better downtown, where most of the action (bar fights, theft) occurs. I hear the main problem being something like small offices. OMG, let’s get out the tiny violins. Small (or no) offices for workes in Estes Park is common and is not a problem. The police cars don’t get bothered with and a perp walk is only a couple of feet and has never been a problem. There is also vacant office space downtown where other services, like billing and such could easily be moved, thus freeing up more existing space for police offices. Don’t put the police station by our schools or in our parks!