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Council debates temporary Kingston Road lease for Area 4, urges faster search for an Area 2 substation site
Summary
Council members debated a short-term lease for a police substation on Kingston Road to house Area 4 while urging staff to find a closer, permanent location for Area 2 officers. Concerns focused on response times, vehicle storage and costs of moving officers twice versus building new facilities.
City council members discussed a proposed temporary lease on Kingston Road to house a police substation serving Area 4 and Area 2 duties while the city searches for permanent locations. Several council members said the Kingston Road location was too far east for Area 2 patrols and urged staff to fast-track a closer solution.
Councilman Brooks said moving Area 2 so far east would leave parts of Area 2 underserved and called for urgency in identifying an alternative site closer to residents who rely on Area 2 coverage. "Moving that area out that far is not good for the residents in that area," Brooks said.
Council members and the chief discussed operational trade-offs. The police chief (unnamed in the transcript) said substations primarily serve as roll-call and administrative hubs; officers still spend most of their time patrolling from their vehicles. The chief explained that positioning a vehicle nearer to its patrol area reduces transit time and increases productive patrol time: "If that car is positioned in Southern Hills, it's gonna always, for the majority of the time, be in its district where they serve." He added that not all patrol officers have home storage units and that roughly half of each shift would likely need to check out vehicles from a substation under the planned arrangement.
Council members balanced fiscal concerns about leasing space and retrofitting non-police buildings against service-level considerations. Several members said retrofitting and moving officers twice would add costs and that a temporary lease could be less expensive than immediately constructing a new facility. At the same time, multiple council members asked staff to actively pursue closer sites — suggestions included vacant office complexes near Highland, Centenary-owned properties, Mall Saint Vincent and available space on Southpointe Parkway.
Council and staff also discussed logistics such as vehicle key exchange, home storage units, and whether some vehicles could remain at headquarters for check-out to reduce transit time. The police chief said physical logistics would need a management plan and that the city could consider duplicate keys or field-based supervisory exchanges to reduce inefficiency.
No final council vote on a permanent location occurred. The council signaled support for using a temporary leased site to remove officers from an unsound Texas Street building and requested staff to pursue nearer-term alternatives for Area 2 while moving forward with arrangements that preserve patrol capacity.
