San Mateo moving toward new sleeping quarters for police

Though eight beds are currently provided in two separated barrack rooms at the San Mateo Police Department at 200 Franklin Parkway, City Manager Drew Corbett explained the positioning of the rooms between the locker rooms and a gym is not conducive to sleeping quarters. Designed to provide officers working overtime or making a court appearance with an opportunity to sleep between especially long shifts, the barracks are increasingly being used by officers weighing whether it makes sense to drive on average an hour to get home between regular, 11-hour shifts, he added.

Because Fire Station 26 is being leased to American Medical Response as a rest facility through the end of the year, Mayor Diane Papan was joined by her fellow councilmembers in advocating for city staff to explore the cost of terminating the lease early. She suggested staff work with hotels to provide vouchers for officers in need of rest between shifts in the meantime while a more permanent facility is prepared.

“We have some people traveling some very long distances when they’re very tired and that just cannot happen anymore,” she said, according to a video of the meeting.

Corbett acknowledged the termination of the lease on Fire Station 26, which generated nearly $39,000 annually, would represent a loss in revenue. But he noted those costs could be offset by the additional storage space the city could gain with a renovation of the facility, which he said could reduce the city’s costs of storing vehicles off site.

Though officials also considered the possibility of offering trailers or other types of portable residences with bathrooms and other amenities on city-owned land, Corbett noted the lack of city-owned lots that could accommodate trailers. He said the city’s corporation yard is already at capacity and another empty lot on 42nd Avenue is set to be used for construction staging for a new underground flow equalization system, an overflow component of San Mateo’s new wastewater treatment system.

Another option officials considered was finding places for officers to sleep in privately-owned or community-based facilities, but Corbett didn’t recommend the strategy out of concerns about whether it could violate the city’s existing gift polices. Though she acknowledged the challenges that could accompany the option, resident Anna Kuhre underscored how much community members value their police officers and said many attending meetings of the San Mateo United Homeowners Association have expressed interest in either hosting police officers at their homes as well as supporting officials’ efforts to identify a solution.

“I can tell you that that offer is out there in still many homes, they want to do it for free,” she said. “They want to do what they can to help the police.”

For Deputy Mayor Maureen Freschet, the fact that 21 of the 31 police officers who left the department since 2013 did so because of commute-related issues demonstrated how critical the issue is. In response to Freschet’s question about how much it costs to recruit new police officers, Police Chief Susan Manheimer said it usually costs the department an estimated $150,000 for an officer to go through nearly a year of training, which includes the police academy and field training but does not include the officer’s salary.

Freschet acknowledged the growing number of police officers living long distances from the community they serve and the risks their commutes pose to their personal safety and effectiveness. She favored creating a multi-purpose substation at Fire Station 26 so the department can improve its response times to the eastern part of the city during heavy traffic, and felt the city should act quickly to address the issue.

“I don’t see how we can not afford to stop that flow of officers leaving and provide sleeping quarters for them,” she said. “To me, that’s the clearest path towards saving money.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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