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WOOD RIVER – Drivers on Route 143 have been seeing the final phases of the construction of a new Wood River Police Department.
Wood River Mayor Cheryl Maguire and Wood River Police Chief Brad Wells believe the new department will be ready for at least limited use by the end of January or early February, and completely open to the public by mid-March. Some final touches are being done to the interior of the new department, and the entire parking lot needs to be constructed. In spite of the work still requiring completion, eight people will be chosen from a raffle to be the jail's first inmates.
In what Maguire described as a fun fundraiser, the City of Wood River has been selling $10 raffle tickets from the police station for a Thursday noontime drawing. Eight people will be chosen who have purchased tickets, and they will be able to sit in the cells and get their mugshots taken.
“It sounds like a fun deal for whoever's name gets drawn,” Maguire said. “The money goes toward the cost of a police memorial.”
The police memorial will be constructed outside of the department to honor three officers who have been killed in the line of duty since Wood River was incorporated as a city. Wells said the design for it is still in the works. It is slated to be dedicated on May 15 during the ribbon cutting and open house for the station.
Funding for the new station was sourced from a grant provided by British Petroleum (BP). The oil giant provided more than $6 million toward the construction of the station after donating the land, which the corporation cleaned after moving their refineries from the area.
Wells said the new station will feature more space for officers to perform their duties as well as more rooms for interrogations and exercise. An additional training room was also built for not only the police department, but other city departments as well.
For the security and safety of officers, a sally port will also be built onto the new station. A sally port would allow officers to bring prisoners into a secured garage instead of moving them from the car to the station across an unsecured parking lot. A secured garage will also allow police to keep vehicles for evidence processing.
When the asphalt plants open again, Wells said the station will receive its parking lot.
“It would have been done by now if winter hadn't hit so early,” he said. “Winter got real cold real fast in November, and it went straight from summer to winter. We could probably do it now if the plants were open. It would have been done earlier if not for that cold.”
Once the parking lot is finished, the public can utilize the new station to its fullest extent. Administration and investigations will be moving there soon.Steven Spencer also contributed to this story.
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