CHP to get new facility
EL CENTRO — Cramped, outdated and dilapidated is how California Highway Patrol Capt. Arturo Proctor describes the agency’s 52-year-old, 4,000-square-foot station in Imperial.
Not only does the facility largely fail to meet the CHP’s operational needs, Proctor said, but plumbing problems on Wednesday prevented him from hosting a press conference there announcing plans to design and build a new facility.
“How fitting, right,” Proctor jokingly said.
In spite of those plumbing issues, Proctor said he felt elated knowing that years of collaborative efforts at the local and state level had recently resulted in the allocation of more than $40.3 million to build a 27,481-square-foot building in El Centro.
The single-story facility, which is not projected to be completed until 2021, will be located near the southwest corner of Fourth Street and Wake Avenue and will include an automotive service area, secured parking for patrol vehicles and public parking.
Additional amenities will include an expanded locker room, fuel island, truck/bus citation area, emergency generator, communications tower with radio vault, landscaping and utilities.
“We’re going to be able to do more with what we have,” Proctor said.
Aside from the additional office space and amenities, the new facility will also be engineered to withstand earthquakes.
The facility’s proposed design renderings also stand to greatly benefit the agency’s dispatchers. Currently, dispatchers are housed in an area of the existing facility that is subjected to prolonged exposure to the sun during the summer months.
The facility’s funding was made available with the recent passing of the state’s $190.4 billion budget and the advocacy of both Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, and Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, both of whom were on hand Wednesday.
Hueso said local CHP personnel deserved praise for continuing to operate out of the existing facility and addressing the needs of an area the size of Imperial County.
Hueso also thanked local officials for making their desires known to both him and Garcia through the years, allowing the pair to better advocate in Sacramento on behalf of local constituents.
“It means that we’re able to coalesce around things that are vital to you in this county,” Hueso said.
The job of statewide office holders is to pass policies reflective of their respective district’s needs and bring home their fair share of the state’s revenue, Garcia said.
The $40 million public safety investment is a considerable one, he said, and represents a tremendous amount of coordination at the local level and in Sacramento.
“It is hoped that it will also stay here when it comes to the contract or when it comes to building the facility,” Garcia said.
On Wednesday, El Centro Mayor Cheryl Viegas-Walker also thanked the CHP for the training opportunities it has provided local law enforcement personnel.
With the recent passage of Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, additional training of local law enforcement personnel by the CHP should help enhance impaired driving enforcement initiatives, she said.
The proposed CHP facility’s funding comes at a time when the city of El Centro is also looking to build a new station for its Police Department.
“We hope to learn from you as you move forward with this construction, on things we can perhaps learn and incorporate in our design of our facility,” Viegas-Walker said.