After spending $35K in repairs, city closing substation

Gallup Police Officer Owen Pena locks up the downtown substation Thursday afternoon. (Photo by John A.Bowersmith/Independent)

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — The corner of Coal Avenue and Second Street will look a little different come March 31.

That's the date the Gallup Police Department will be vacating its downtown sub-station, a year after moving in.

With the department's share of the city's budget on the rise, said City Manager Eric Honeyfield, thanks mostly to rising officers' wages pushing personnel costs "over where they should be," something had to go. What went, the city decided, considering the bank for the buck, would be the sub-station.

"In flush times, if we had more funds, it's something we might keep ... but we're not sure the costs equal the benefits," said Honeyfield. "Buildings on their own don't accomplish a lot of law enforcement."

"I don't think it will dramatically affect our work at the department," agreed Capt. John Allen, the department's spokesperson.

The rent wasn't much, roughly $1,000 a month, according to Honeyfield. Most of what the city has spent of the sub-station, actually, has already been sunk into repairing and preparing the space, leased to the city by Rudy and Jan Radosevich.

After deciding to move in, the city spent some $35,000 fixing the damage caused by a nearby water line that broke and flooded the room until the rising water broke through the floor-to-ceiling windows and poured into the street.

As opposed to what sometimes happens, Honeyfield said, the Radoseviches did not sue for damages, which were, after all, he added, the city's fault. But he wouldn't say that the city's decision to turn the space into a sub-station had anything to do with that.

Considering that Honeyfield and Allen have no qualms about moving out, though, that $35,000 plus rent doesn't seem to have paid off.

Honeyfield says it's made no noticeable dent on the among of crime in the area, and that the downtown's trouble spots can be patrolled just as well without a sub-station nearby.

"We all know where these undesirables hang out and where they conduct their business," he said.

As Allen sees it, closing the sub-station might even, if anything, help the department.

Right now, he said, the sub-station houses the department DWI unit and school resource officers. Once it closes down, "they'll probably be spending more time out in the field than in the office," he said. "I would see that as a plus."

That's not how everyone sees it, however.

Some downtown businesses will miss the stable, regular police presence the sub-station has provided.

"There's been less people harassing us from the walk-way, for sure," said Brandy Romero, who's worked at The Coffee Shop across the street for the last three years. "There's just all kinds of people who come in here who are drunk and intoxicated who harass our customers."

Since the sub-station opened, Romero says she's seen that sort of activity around the shop cut in half.

Honeyfield will admit to one regret over the sub-station's pending closure, however.

"One loss," he said, "that was a benefit, was having a public bathroom."

Most downtown businesses continue to turn people away unless they are customers, he said. The sub-station was one of the only places they could turn to when nature called.

— Contact reporter Zsombor Peter at (505) 863-6811 ext. 217.