(Spirit Lake)– The Spirit Lake Police Department will be moving to a new location in 2004.
Meeting in special session today (Mon.), the city council voted to purchase the former Alliant Energy/Interstate Power and Light Operations Center in downtown Spirit Lake at a cost of 150-thousand dollars.
Police Chief Jon Martyr says his department was simply getting too cramped in the existing offices at city hall.
Martyr says a firm date for a move hasn’t been set yet. He says it will probably be sometime this coming spring…probably around May 1st. Martyr says some minor remodeling needs to be done, costing somewhere between 21-thousand and 30-thousand dollars.
Martyr feels the Police Department will still be closely linked with other city offices, even though they will no longer be housed under the same roof.
Plans call for the Public Works Department to expand into the city hall offices currently occupied by the Police Department.
City officials say this means plans for a major rennovation of city hall, estimated at between 800-thousand and 1.5 million dollars, can be done away with…atleast for now.
The vote to purchase the former Alliant Energy Operations Center was four-to-nothing. Councilman Terry Yarns was absent.
