The Dallas Police Department will get more space, but not the new station that city officials hoped for; that plan fizzled when voters rejected a multimillion-dollar bond in May 2025.

On April 6, the city council approved plans to reduce monthly stormwater charges by $5 and add a new $5 facility and equipment fee that will pay for the renovation of the city-owned ex-Polk County Itemizer-Observer building into a new city hall.

That means Dallas residents won’t pay more than they already are to fund the work.

The new fee structure will allow the police department to take over the current 22,000-square-foot city hall. That 90-year-old building will eventually be remodeled.

The $2.5 million that will be raised over 10 years from the fee is significantly less than the proposed bond’s $17.2 million that failed to gain voters’ approval. But it will help the city meet its goal of giving the police department more space in an updated building.

“The net effect on the bill payer would be zero dollars,” Dallas City Manager Brian Latta told the city council. “Because voters said ‘no,’ it required everybody to look and say, what’s next?’ There are immediate positive impacts for the police department.”

City Councilor Carlos Barrientos expressed concern that the city would remodel city hall before addressing the problems with the police station. The police department currently operates out of about 4,000 square feet, has no private interview room for victims, and has run out of storage space for evidence (it sits in stacks on the floor).

“The reason we got here in the first place is we wanted to do something to support our police officers by giving them a new police station with more room,” said Barrientos, who voted for the fee. “To me, it seems that the priority here is being put on a new city hall.”

Latta said the new fee will raise enough money for conceptual work to transform the current city hall into a police station and for security upgrades like lockable doors.

City Councilor Kim Fitzgerald said she supported the improvements but voted against the fee because it was not sent to voters.

She was the lone dissenting vote in the council’s 8-1 decision to enact the new fee.

“I know that we just reduced one fee, but to create a new fee, I have a little bit of a problem with that,” Fitzgerald said. “I think it’s a creative solution, but it’s still a fee. It’s still a tax.”

The approximately 12,000-square-foot Itemizer-Observer building is next to city hall on Court Street. The city purchased it for $660,000 in 2023.

Estimates from contractors for the work on the Itemizer-Observer building range between $1.2 million and $1.4 million.

When the renovation of that building is completed, 20 city employees will move into it. And there will be enough room to accommodate more.

The city will borrow about $2 million from its stormwater fund for work on the Itemizer-Observer building. It will repay that money with interest, meaning that fund will receive about $400,000 more than it already has.

“It does take some of those six- to 20-year projects and pushes them out a little bit longer,” Latta said.

The new city hall could be ready as soon as November, Latta said.

The city does not have either a timeline for converting the current city hall into a police station or a plan to secure funding for the project.

Latta said the city hopes to receive a grant from Business Oregon for seismic rehabilitation of the aged city hall. That state agency gives grants for up to $3 million for such work.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Statesman Journal and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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