By Darrell Halen 

A $7.3 million proposal to build a new police station was unanimously backed by Salem selectmen and appears to have the support of most Budget Committee members.

Plans call for a 26,000-square-foot building that would be constructed behind the current station. The new facility is being requested to accommodate a Police Department that has outgrown its station, which was built in 1966 and has been added on to several times.

“The building is not getting any younger. It’s not getting any easier to maintain,” Don Freeman, a member of the police station building committee, told selectmen during their Monday, Jan. 14, meeting. “It ultimately will be constructed. It’s not going to get cheaper than it is today.”

The Salem Police Department is the fourth busiest in New Hampshire, according to Freeman.

In the 1970s, officers answered 123,000 service calls. In the 1990s, they were answered 354,000.

The department had 27 officers in the 1970s. Now it has 59 full-time officers, 20 civilian employees and 20 part-time officers.

The current station suffers from inadequate space, its cell block, lockers and weapons storage are substandard and the building doesn’t meet current building and electrical codes, according to Freeman.

“We need to be out of that building,” said Police Chief Paul Donovan. “It’s just not suitable for a department our size.”

The new station can be built with minimal impact to adjacent wetlands, and the current station will remain operational while the new building is being constructed, Freeman said.

The warrant article that selectmen are putting before voters in March calls for appropriating $7,135,712 to construct the new station and for site improvements, to authorize the issuance of no more than $6,985,712 in bonds or notes, and to spend up to $150,000 in interest earnings on the invested bond proceeds.

In addition, it authorizes selectmen to accept state aid and other funds that may be available.

Some of the $7.3 million for the project will be funded with asset forfeiture money and impact fees.

The warrant article requires a two-thirds percent majority to pass. If approved, it would annually cost the average homeowner $42. A proposal to build a new station in 2004 did not get the two-thirds vote it needed to pass.

Baybutt Construction of Keene, selected for the project, submitted a bid of $5,985,525. The project’s total price tag includes contingency money and $827,500 for owners’ costs, such as wetlands permitting, equipment, furniture, communications, technology and construction oversight.

Most Budget Committee members, meeting after the selectmen adjourned, supported the article when they took a preliminary vote. But several said they wanted to see a breakdown of some of the costs.

One committee member, Stephen Campbell, said he doesn’t support the warrant article. School and town spending is going up, and people can’t afford the new station, he said.

“The question is: where are we supposed to come up with this money? The idea that it will never be cheaper doesn’t make it any easier to pay the tax bill when it comes.

“I’m going to vote no, not because we don’t need a new police station, but because there doesn’t seem to be any political will in this town by elected leaders to say no to anyone,” he added. “That’s why the increases are so crazy this year.”