Troopers may get new HQ in CdA

Idaho State Police Capt. Wayne Longo oversees a staff of 34 troopers, 15 dispatchers and others, and they’re all crammed into a 1,000-square-foot office on Prairie Avenue in Coeur d’Alene. It’s a crowded and cluttered place to work.

“We’re cramped,” Longo said. “We need space.”

Gov. Butch Otter on Monday proposed spending $12 million in surplus funds to build a new state police headquarters in the city. If the Legislature agrees, the building would go up just down the street, likely facing Wilbur Avenue, on a 7-acre parcel offered by the Idaho Transportation Department.

The new building would allow all of the agency’s North Idaho staff to be under one roof. Some detectives work out of a downtown building, and the state police forensics office is at Harbor Center in space belonging to the University of Idaho.

Troopers and detectives are making multiple trips daily between the offices, Longo said.

At headquarters, the only place where troopers can meet with the public is in a lobby measuring about 100 square feet. That has been a security concern at times, such as when an irate person comes in while a trooper is meeting with a citizen, Longo said.

It’s also awkward to talk with grieving families and victims in the lobby, he said. Sometimes troopers end up taking people into the secure part of the building and kicking Longo out of his office so they have somewhere private to talk. Longo’s office also is where the department stores riot and crowd-control gear.

One of the biggest problems with the building is that it wasn’t built for modern technology and communication, Longo said. The furnace room is full of communications equipment, with a tangle of multicolored wires. It’s also where mop buckets and cleaning supplies are stored.

“It’s embarrassing,” he said. Dispatcher Jennifer Sullivan said there’s one thing she’d like to see in a new building: space.

“You feel like you’re on top of each other all the time,” said Sullivan, who works elbow-to-elbow with other dispatchers who handle calls for Idaho’s 10 northern counties.

Dispatchers eat meals at their desks, with a microwave tucked into a nearby cupboard.

A new headquarters also would give employees a greater sense of security, Longo said.

Trooper Linda Huff was gunned down and killed in the building’s parking lot in 1998. Though a fence was erected around the parking lot afterward, Longo said he would like to see additional security measures, such as having parking for patrol cars behind the building and out of sight.

He’d also like to have support personnel behind secure doors. “I want these guys to feel like they’re safe inside our building.”