TEMPLE TERRACE, Fla. \u2014 Temple Terrace voters overwhelmingly approved a $50 million bond referendum to build a new public safety complex for police and Fire Station 3 during Tuesday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
The referendum needed just more than 50% of the vote to pass and received 60% support. The project will replace the Temple Terrace Police Department\u2019s current space on the third floor of City Hall, where officers have worked since the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really happy because this has been a project that we\u2019ve been working on for the last, I\u2019d say, 40 years,\u201d Temple Terrace Police Chief Rob Staley said.<\/p>\n
Staley said the need for a new facility has grown as the department has added officers to serve the city\u2019s growing population.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, our evidence room is consuming more and more of that space to the point where engineers were telling us, \u2018Listen, you can\u2019t add too much more weight to this. You know, you\u2019re on the third floor of a three-story building. If you\u2019re not careful, you\u2019re going to end up with a one-story pile of rubble,\u2019\u201d said Mayor Andy Ross.<\/p>\n
According to the city, the new facility will mean faster response times, help with recruitment and retention of first responders, and support accreditation standards. It will also mean higher costs for residents. Information from the city\u2019s website says owners of a property assessed at $200,000 will see up to $185 a year in additional taxes.<\/p>\n
Staley said he took part in more than two dozen presentations around the community to explain the need for the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it is a hard sell, but I think the community supports law enforcement here in Temple Terrace, and that\u2019s clear by the vote we saw yesterday,\u201d Staley said.<\/p>\n
Ross said the city will not issue the bond immediately because legal steps must happen first. He said the timing will also allow the city to see whether a November ballot measure to increase the property tax exemption passes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t definitively know how that may or may not impact us. I don\u2019t think it will,\u201d Ross said. \u201cI know this is a separate line item on your TRIM (Truth in Millage) notice. However, we are waiting to see what the legislature may do for enabling that legislation if that amendment passes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staley said the project still must go through architectural design before construction can begin. He said work on the new complex could wrap up sometime in 2029.<\/p>\n
The new facility is expected to include a firing range for officers, more room to store evidence and space to process vehicles, something the department has not been able to do at City Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEMPLE TERRACE, Fla. \u2014 Temple Terrace voters overwhelmingly approved a $50 million bond referendum to build a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[767,3140,2967,274,28,276,2287,115,99,277,2718,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":["post-376473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-community","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-florida","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-public-safety","tag-sarah-blazonis","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}