Hinchman says council, administration planning wasteful, oversized facility
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Local resident Michael Hinchman asked Ocean City Council and the administration to hold a referendum on the $42 million public safety building that has been proposed to consolidate and replace two buildings.
Contacted after the meeting, Hinchman said if the city doesn’t hold a referendum, he is contemplating one. A referendum would require a petition drive to get enough support to put the project up for a public vote.
The public safety project, initially proposed at $35 million, would be built over the current footprint of the Ocean City Fire Department building at Fifth Street and Asbury Avenue and incorporate a police station and court, eliminating the need for the aging and outdated police station/court building on Central Avenue between Eighth and Ninth streets.
Hinchman appeared during the public comment section of the June 10 City Council meeting and he didn’t mince words, saying the city is constructing a building that is too large and wasteful.
“I think you guys are way out over your skis. I think the project has gotten away from you,” Hinchman said. “I think you really can’t justify going from 40,000 feet to 70,000 feet … and you’re going to knock over a building that’s worth $6.6 million to get it done.”
At one point the city considered building a new police station for $17 million to $18 million, but then unveiled a $35 million, 70,000-square-foot facility and recently the price tag grew to $42 million – or $600 per square foot, he said.
Hinchman said knocking down the existing firehouse, which is 40 years old but has a useful life of several more decades, would waste $6.6 million as the building’s replacement cost. While the current fire station has four bays at 13 to 14 feet wide, the department is requesting five bays that are 20 feet wide, even though the architect for the project designed the Absecon firehouse with the smaller bays. “What’s good enough for Absecon is good enough for Ocean City,” Hinchman said. He noted when he toured the firehouse, the fourth bay was used for an antique fire truck and fitness equipment.
“There’s tremendous functionality left in that firehouse. Knocking over that building is fiscally irresponsible,” he said.
He spoke to Police Chief Jay Prettyman and studied the current police station and said the department needs about 22,000 square feet, but suggested 25,000 to be safe and that the court requires at most 5,000 square feet.
Combined, he asserted, the new public safety building should be 41,000 square feet.
He said it is wasteful to have 6,000 square feet set aside for record storage and 3,000 square feet for an indoor practice shooting range.
Hinchman said he knows of only two police departments in New Jersey that have indoor shooting ranges and “the last time an Ocean City police officer discharged his weapon in this town was 9 years ago to shoot a dog.” There are other practice ranges that could be used instead, he said.
Who would spend $600 a square foot on storage, a cost of $3.6 million, for records when most businesses find less expensive storage space off-shore, he asked. He cited casinos in Atlantic City that store their records off-shore where it is cheaper.
“Would anybody in this town build a building for $3.6 million to store records?”
Perhaps the city could have the records microfilmed and saved, foregoing the need to have a records room at all, he suggested.
“I think you should have a referendum. The last time (the city) spent that much money was when we built the high school. It is different dollars today. Do a referendum,” he said, adding that going from about 40,000 feet to a 70,000 square foot facility is “egregious.”
He also said he didn’t like the fact of having the police station – where sex offenders go to register – across the street from the Ocean City Primary School.
Hinchman claims the council and administration “always justify every major expenditure by the cost to each individual property owner. This is foolhardy and backwards. Let’s buy $100 screwdrivers using that logic. That only costs the average tax payer a dime more in taxes. Stupid. You evaluate an expenditure by the merits of the project given the cost.”
Instead of constructing a facility 70 percent larger than the existing space being used for the fire department, police station and court, spend $22 million to build a new police station and court next to the existing fire station … if the city can solve the problem of “bad guys” going to the police station across from the school.
He also proposed a public debate, sponsored by Ocean City’s newspaper, the Sentinel, with the mayor or a council member to look at the “merits of my position as compared to theirs. Let’s put their plan under real public scrutiny as compared to the one-sided rollout we always see,” Hinchman told the Sentinel.
“Council and the mayor give no pause to this massive white elephant,” Hinchman told the newspaper. “Therefore, I am contemplating a referendum to stop the demolition of a perfectly good firehouse and limit the construction of a Public Safety Building to only the police department and court for $22 million. That is 30,000 square feet at $600 per foot with a $4 million overage. I believe once the public is adequately informed this $42 million project will fall like a house of cards.”