Armory could become emergency center for entire county
The former Army National Guard armory near National Park Community College could become an emergency center for the entire county, Garland County officials said Monday.
Justices of the Peace Mary Bournival, District 4, and Matt Mckee, District 9, County Judge Rick Davis, Sheriff Larry Sanders and Garland County Office of Emergency Management Director Joy Sanders and Deputy Director Bobby King discussed potential uses for the facility in a Monday morning meeting.
The Army National Guard recently donated the building to the county.
“No decisions will be made today. If we have ideas, this is where we need to throw them out,” Mckee said. “Nothing’s going to get shot down. To get this started in the committee process, we need to know how it would look if you moved out there, the best- case scenario of what would you like to see out there. We’d like to know what you’d like and we’d like to know what we can afford.”
“We’re going to use it to the maximum benefit. I think it’s going to be really good for the county,” he said.
Mckee is chairman of the Garland County Quorum Court’s Public Works and Buildings Committee. He and Bournival are members of the quorum court’s Finance Committee. Mckee said ideas discussed during the session would be forwarded to the Public Works and Buildings Committee for further consideration.
Bournival said the armory is an “ideal spot” for an emergency operations center for the county.
“This is right in the middle of the county,” she said.
Bournival said that if several emergency response operations are located in the armory “this building would end up becoming an emergency center for
the whole county.”
King said the old armory is “perfect for a disaster response center.”
The sheriff ’ s off ice, coroner’s office, American Red Cross and the OEM are among possible occupants of the building’s various sections.
Bournival said part of the armory could be used as an early voting site several weeks of the year, possibly replacing a recently opened site near NPCC. She said conducting early voting at the countyowned facility would save the county money.
Sanders said there would be drawbacks to moving the sheriff ’ s department to the armory.
“We have maintenance people that keep our fleet going and they could not be working in this close area to office space with power tools, changing out tires and everything that they do,” Sanders said. “We couldn’t really use that as a garage if we moved our facility out there.”
Davis said the county “would almost have to build another mechanics shop” at the armory to service the vehicles.
Sanders said that if the entire sheriff’s department were moved to the armory “the public would just have to get used to us being out there and being able to get to us and come in and make their reports and things such as that.”
Sanders said that with the new Garland County Detention Center being constructed not far from the old armory, the sheriff’s department will likely have a satellite station at the new jail and would not need one at the armory as county officials have discussed.
But he said the department could use the fenced- in area at the rear of the armory to store patrol boats.