Boulder City OKs agreement for police training facility

By Jean Reid Norman

Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.

A new regional training facility in the Eldorado Valley for area police is a step closer to construction after a vote by the Boulder City Council Tuesday night.

The council voted 4-1 to approve an agreement between Boulder City and Henderson for the Eldorado Valley Regional Public Safety Training Facility to be built on 240 acres of city land. Henderson has already set aside $1 million for its construction, Henderson Police Lt. Rob McCorkle said, and it recently was awarded another $250,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to outfit the facility. In addition, Henderson has two modular office buildings it will move to the site for use as classrooms.

In addition to providing the land, Boulder City has more than $600,000 in federal earmarks to cover roads, fencing and other infrastructure, City Manager Vicki Mayes said.

The Henderson City Council is expected to approve the agreement at an upcoming meeting, McCorkle said, and then construction can begin.

The first phase of construction would provide a shooting range with 15 lanes for officers to qualify with their service weapons, Boulder City Police Chief Thomas Finn said. This is especially helpful for Henderson, which has 400 officers who have to keep their skills sharp, he said.

In addition, Finn said, he has had representatives of federal agencies asking when the facility will be ready for use. Agencies other than Boulder City and Henderson police departments will pay for its use, according to the agreement between the cities.

“Dozens of federal agencies are dying to use this facility,” Finn said.

The chief said he hoped to have the facility ready within a few months.

A second and third phase would add a 400-yard sniper range, an empty house to train SWAT units in entering a home with an armed suspect and a second emergency vehicle operations course, Finn said.

The site already has an 800-by-800-foot road course where police officers can practice driving skills, Finn said. In addition to Boulder City police, the course is used by Henderson police, the Nevada Highway Patrol, the police academy and other agencies. The second course would be the same size and provide extra capacity for training, Finn said.

“Now agencies wait weeks at a time for its use,” he said.

The facility also is equipped to accommodate training by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The agency will stage an explosion, then walk officers through gathering evidence, Finn said. The training site has a pit almost 1,000 feet across that is perfect for such training, he said.

“You can blow up a bus and no one would complain, because no one lives nearby,” Finn said.

Finn said he was relieved to have the vote completed and the project moving forward.

Some members of the Boulder City Council expressed reservations with the agreement, asking what would happen if Henderson was forced for budgetary reasons to pull out.

McCorkle reassured the council members that the $1 million approved for the facility is earmarked only for its use and that Henderson city officials are fully committed to the project.

“The chances of us pulling out are zero,” McCorkle said. “We have to have it. We’ve promised Nevada POST that we will have a training facility down here. We’ve made agreements with other entities. It behooves us all to move forward.”

Chandler said that while he supports the project, he voted against it, because he thinks the use of the Eldorado Valley parcel for a police training facility requires a referendum.