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Graphic courtesy of ATI Architects and Engineers
One low-cost option for the Village public safety center would allow the sheriff's and postal facilities to remain unchanged but re-site a new fire station farther back from the Saratoga Avenue corner. Possible changes to crosswalks at the Saratoga Avenue-Highway 9 intersection and added signals around Oak Street are shown.
Council wants leaner design for new Village safety center
By Oakley Brooks
Plans to build an extensive bi-level parking structure on the Saratoga Federated Church property, in order to support a new public safety center, were scrapped by the city council last week.
The public will not support a bond measure to build the estimated $3.2 million garage, the council agreed.
Members directed an ad-hoc committee designing sheriff's, fire and postal facilities to concentrate on several leaner proposals presented to the council on March 6.
Two of the committee-generated proposals favored by the council would involve moving the post office from its small Village station, to allow sheriff's and fire facilities to expand at their current locations on Saratoga Avenue.
A third, no-frills option calls for a new fire station without any changes to the adjacent U.S. Postal Service building, which houses the post office and sheriff's substation. The city would swap one of its alleys on the property for a chunk of the fire district's former Contempo Realty property to allow for a modified parking area behind the new fire station.
The proposal would also allow the Postal Service to stay put.
Saratoga Postmaster Curtis Jewell said recently that his agency doesn't want to move off its site unless the city can provide a new parcel in the Village to exchange for the Saratoga Avenue property.
"We don't want to sell just to sell," said Jewell. "We want to maintain a presence in the Village. And the district manager (in San Jose) doesn't want to lease or have a contract operation."
The postal property question is just one of several crucial ones that will have to be answered in the coming weeks by the safety center committee--made up of interested citizens and public agency representatives.
Council members have asked the committee to revisit the possibility of a fire station opposite Oak Street on the fire district's Contempo property. The committee had ruled that out after Fire Chief Ernie Kraule and members of the Firefighters and Citizens Task Force agreed the best place for fire trucks to enter traffic in the area would be on Saratoga Avenue. The cost of completely reconfiguring the safety center site for a new firehouse location was also seen as prohibitively high.
At the urging of safety center committee member Don Whetstone, members of the council also called for a detailed traffic study on the site to determine how current and potential exits for emergency vehicles would affect pedestrian and car safety on Saratoga Avenue and Highway 9.
ATI architect Francis Chan said he would advocate that any final safety center design improve pedestrian safety and traffic flow in the area through new crosswalks at the Highway 9-Saratoga Avenue intersection and the placement of signal lights around Oak Street.
Neighbors supported those improvements and requested that the new safety center not dump more traffic on surrounding residential streets.
"Abide by your promises to protect neighborhoods," La Paloma Avenue resident Meg Caldwell told the city council.
The safety center committee will now go back to the drawing board in the hopes of returning to the council with one or two final options in April.
At the very least, parking modifications in the no-frills plan are estimated at $330,000. Site expansion to allow for a drive-through fire station, where trucks would re-enter the station from the parking area, could cost up to $2.6 million.
On March 6, both Councilman John Mehaffey and Mayor Nick Streit pushed for a speedy completion of the process.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
