Wake County Republicans want a new Emergency Operations Center, but won\u2019t partner with the City of Raleigh because its facility won\u2019t be underground.<\/p>\n
In a four-three vote split along party lines, Wake County Commissioners Monday decided against partnering with the city to build a new public safety facility that would, among other things, house the County\u2019s Emergency Operations Center.<\/p>\n
Raleigh\u2019s Critical Public Safety Facility will be the new headquarters of the 911 call center, emergency operations center, data center and traffic operations center. The 97,000-square-foot building is planned for city property on Brentwood Road and North Raleigh Boulevard.<\/p>\n
The city invited the county to also locate its emergency operations center within the new facility.<\/p>\n
The county\u2019s contribution to the $68.9 million center would have been $4 million, with annual operating expenses coming in at between $53,000 and $79,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need something bigger and better,\u201d Commissioner Phil Matthews said of the County\u2019s current center, which is located in the County Courthouse basement.<\/p>\n
But Matthews said he isn’t comfortable with Raleigh\u2019s facility situation above ground.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Paul Coble has been an outspoken opponent of the facility\u2019s above-ground design since earlier this year, often bringing up his experience visiting New York City\u2019s Emergency Operations Center prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. That center was destroyed along with the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saddened that the City of Raleigh has taken such a harsh position that they won\u2019t reconsider,\u201d Coble said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see both sides of this issue,\u201d said Commissioner Tony Gurley.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Gurley said it is best for the county to have its center below ground.<\/p>\n
Commissioners agreed that co-location is the best option during an emergency so that all agencies could work together seamlessly, but they disagreed about whether they should move forward with Raleigh or build their own center.<\/p>\n
Constructing a separate building will cost the county between $9 million and $11 million, not including the cost of land.<\/p>\n
About 8 percent of the total cost \u2014 or about $850,000 \u2014 is associated with putting part of the building underground.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re willing to spend 10 million to put [the Convention Center] underground so that the skyline looks nice,\u201d Gurley said. \u201cBut we\u2019re debating whether to spend $850,000 to put an essential public safety entity building underground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Current Center Needs Josh Creighton, the County’s emergency management director, said that the center has about 1,300 square feet of usable space and seating for about 30 people. In an emergency, more than 60 seats will be needed.<\/p>\n Plans for a joint county-city center offered 15,000 square feet of usable space, with 6,500 of that assigned to the county.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though the county performs superbly during events, the facility limits our effectiveness,\u201d Creighton said.<\/p>\n Commissioner Caroline Sullivan stressed that the current Emergency Operations Center isn\u2019t cutting it.<\/p>\n She said there are only two options: staying in the current location, or kicking in $4 million to partner with the City.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no third option in our budget,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The county does not have any money budgeted for its own project.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have the resources to build a facility of our own, and the City of Raleigh is willing to bring their money to the table,\u201d said Commissioner Betty Lou Ward.<\/p>\n Coble said while the county only has two options now, \u201cWe can create other choices based on what we think is more important.\u201d<\/p>\n County Manager David Cooke said staff can start looking at county-owned properties that could be used for a standalone center. The planning phase could start within the next three to six months.<\/p>\n City Moving Forward<\/strong> \u201cCost was not a reason the city supported the co-location, because the county’s participation did not make the building less expensive to city taxpayers,\u201d Howe wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat this action does do is place an additional burden on county taxpayers (of which Raleigh residents make up almost half) to fund a standalone, redundant County EOC at an additional cost of $5 million to $8 million above the $4 million it would have cost to join in Raleigh’s project,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Howe said the City will go forward with the design that doesn\u2019t include the county\u2019s portion and the building will be smaller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a split vote along party lines, Wake County Commissioners Monday decided against joining the City of Raleigh in its Critical Public Safety because the center would not be located underground. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24029,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,15,23],"tags":[1257,1258],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>The current center doesn\u2019t meet FEMA or ADA regulations. There are no bathrooms, running water, or areas for food storage and preparation. The building lacks a place for staff to sleep in the case of a prolonged emergency. The center also doesn\u2019t have an independent and secured water source or filtered air supply.<\/p>\n
\nAssistant City Manager Daniel Howe said in an email to the Record that the city plans on going forward with the project without the county\u2019s involvement because cost was never a factor in the partnership.<\/p>\n