While the administration continues to peddle the ‘report-to-work lockers and garage substation’ concept the rest of the policing community refers to them as ‘precincts’;
Sioux Falls City Hall anticipates spending tens of millions of dollars in the coming years and decades on new police facilities around the city.
Two years after opening what’s referred to as a report-to-work station in southern Sioux Falls, Mayor Paul TenHaken and the Sioux Falls Police Department are now eyeing a future with even more standalone police facilities apart from the central law enforcement headquarters downtown.
More than $4 million is marked in the city’s five-year capital plan for a police substation in southwest Sioux Falls, near 41st Street and Faith Avenue. But unlike the report-to-work station that opened in March 2021 near 57th Street and Louise Avenue — an unstaffed garage with locker spaces where officers begin and end their shifts — the substation planned at 41st Street and Faith Avenue will serve as public-interfacing facility.
Word semantics aside, a former city employee pointed out to me it would make more sense to build these substations with the firehouses, even if we have to add on to them. I have also suggested that we go whole hog and just implement a public ambulance service in coordination with the police substations and firehouses. It also goes back to my suggestion of cross training our officers and firefighters to perform other duties.
We all know the current ambulance contract will expire in a couple of years and it would only make sense to prepare for the public option now. That of course would take strategic planning in a public open forum.
The city is not big enough for precincts. There would be promotions prejudice and group isolation from the central department. How about regular police patrols with check-in keys at fire stations? Then, police would stay spread about.
Short term, considering PTH potholes, have police idle at fire stations so there’s timely response.
Substation sounds rather electrifying. So, it could accidentally empower officers to do their own adjudicating. Else, a good place to get a pastrami and rye….. That’s it, what if they called them taco shops?… That way they could nab the gun men immediately…. Because calling them precincts might discourage voting, especially among the RV voters, and we wouldn’t want that to happen…. Or, how about wards, that might be a good name…. Although, it could be confusing if a guy named Ward ran one and he was called Warden Ward for the West Ward near the Westside Walmart, which is further west than the once Montgomery Wards…. (What about hamlets?…. Or, would that be too Shakespearean? ( …. Steak n Shake (-outs)? ))
The mayor would only approve if selfie stations are included.
How do you ‘Report-to-Work’ if you are caught-up in a mannequin challenge? Perhaps, they should be called stationaries.