Renovation continues at Petersburg’s Municipal Building this week. The Police Department will be the first to move in. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/ CoastAlaska News)
The Petersburg Police Department will move into new quarters the first week of February.
Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht told assembly members about the timing of the move into the Municipal Building at their Tuesday evening meeting.
“It’s that vague because obviously as we start testing technology, if it all goes well and we’re fine, then we can move. If some of it doesn’t work, we have to step back and fix it before they can actually move,” he said.
Giesbrecht said the company hired to install the equipment is mobilizing now and will be here through early February.
Giesbrecht said the police department’s transition is complicated and involves more than technology.
A container van is parked next to Petersburg’s Municipal Building Jan. 18, 2017. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/ CoastAlaska News)
“Dispatch, evidence, prisoners (all) have to move kind of in conjunction with each other in some ways. Because the dispatcher tends to be in charge of our evidence, the dispatchers are also our jailers and we can’t leave people unattended in the old building,” he said.
Once police vacate their old space, it will be demolished.
Giesbrecht said various inspectors will arrive in early February. They’ll develop punch-lists of items to be fixed or completed.
He told the assembly that his office and other departments will move into the renovated municipal building later.
They’re temporarily housed in the Petersburg Indian Association’s Hallingstad-Peratrovich Building.
