By Greg Ellison

(July 16, 2020) The OPA Board of Directors agreed 6-0, with one member abstaining, to allocate more than $23,000 from replacement reserves last Friday to procure upgraded security doors for the new police building.

The project is under budget by nearly 10 times that amount.

OPA General Manager John Viola said the purchase request for the Police and Administrative building expansion, which was added to the July 10 meeting agenda that morning, concerned door access controls.

“Chief (Dave Massey) and Lt. Leo Ehrisman had requested certain security for the doors,” he said.

Viola said the original proposal for police station access controls totaled $13,959.

“Over the last couple of weeks … there were some change orders,” he said.

Viola said spending revisions for remote release doors with intercoms, computerized consoles, audio gear and video cameras would add more than $6,900 in cost.

“We also found out just recently that we needed a console, a separate … server… for the police,” he said.  “All this comes out to $23,576.”

Viola said continuing with the current computer server is no longer advisable because of security concerns.

The original police building, which totaled more than 1,700 square feet and was constructed in 1985, is slated to gain an additional 3,640 square feet to increase its overall footprint to roughly 5,400 square feet.

The original station parameters qualified as the smallest police quarters in Worcester County, despite the community having the largest residential population.

Board member Tom Janasek asked if the extra cost for access controls would be included within the project budget or taken from replacement reserves. Viola said funding would be drawn from the reserves

“This is for replacement of an access system that we had there that was so outdated we couldn’t even find it on the books,” he said.

The current police building, which was not designed as a public safety facility, is being updated with advice from criminal justice consultants to adhere more closely to modern police protocols.

The project includes building a new section and renovating the existing structure, which previously housed both the police department and administrative services.

“That building … should be done in the next couple weeks,” Viola said. “ We’re coming in right now favorable to budget [roughly] $200,000.”

Janasek recusing himself from the vote, because he had been traveling and had not seen the proposal.