Supervisors authorize Sheriff to proceed with study of future of Ben Clark Public Safety Training Center
The Board of Supervisors today signed off on Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco's request to spend over $2 million for an evaluation of how best to proceed with modernizing the Ben Clark Public Safety Training Center, though one supervisor expressed concerns about the potential for untenable cost overruns.
"This is an elephant that we need (to feed) one bite at a time,'' Supervisor Kevin Jeffries said. "We cannot try to build a modern city out there in one fell swoop. We cannot afford it."
The Ben Clark Public Safety Training Center Project Phase IA involves a "needs assessment,'' for which the sheriff's department selected Riverside-based Griffin Swinerton LLC. The board authorized up to $2.21 million for the roughly nine-month assessment, which will require procuring information from a variety of agencies regarding what they potentially would like to have available for future use at Ben Clark.
Griffin Swinerton staff will be tasked with conducting meetings with sheriff's personnel, Cal Fire, the Riverside Community College District, the Department of Code Enforcement, California Highway Patrol and other local, state and federal entities, according to documents posted to the board agenda.
A data collection and synthesis process will be followed by completion of a report to sheriff's management and the county Executive Office.
Jeffries reflected on the original objectives, going back to the mid-1990s, of the Riverside-based training center, including its overall structure, which never really came to fruition. Most of the nearly 400-acre campus, the supervisor pointed out, is still composed of trailers and some "stick-built" buildings that serve as classrooms and other components of the grounds.
He worried about the county going too fast in trying to reconfigure the site at a steep price.
"We could be pushing a billion dollars for a comprehensive facility,'' Jeffries said. "Our budget does not allow us to do it. We can be aggressive in our goals and cautious with our finances."
He said pushing the costs of a build-out onto some municipalities that contract with the county for law enforcement services would invite rebellion, potentially inspiring them to form stand-alone police agencies, as the city of Menifee did a few years ago.
County CEO Jeff Van Wagenen responded that the Phase 1A effort would enable the Executive Office and sheriff's department to garner a better sense of priorities going forward -- as well as identify revenue streams and cost saving opportunities to prevent the very scenario Jeffries feared.
"Every building project in the county has cost overruns,'' Bianco said. ``With these needs assessments, we can find out what we need, what we want and is there a compromise. There will be red-light, green-light
(signaling) all through this process."
