By Noel Smith
May 1 2014 marks a milestone for law enforcement throughout the County. That is the day when Sheriff’s Cars first exited the new Public Safety Center in Live Oak to go on patrol. No longer will the County Building be the “temporary home” to officers as they change into their uniforms before roll call and briefing before they head out to fight crime throughout the county. This ends a 40-year search for a new home.
Guests walk through the forensics area of the new facilities.
The facility on the corner of Soquel and Chanticleer Avenues in Live Oak is now the home of the Sheriff’s Department. Just three years after the county approved it as one of the last projects before redevelopment agencies were made history, the facility is nearing completion. Barry Swenson Builder converted a business park, which it owned into a state-of-the-art public safety center.
The new facility radically improves the department’s ability to do everything from CSI-type forensic investigations, to autopsies, to storing and handling evidence using bar codes. The system even tells the department when the property is no longer considered evidence.
Sheriff Phil Wowak declares that there is no other California law enforcement department of this size that now has the capabilities of the Santa Cruz County Public Safety Center.
Whenever Sheriff Wowak speaks about the new facility, it’s with pride and expectation about how this center will help all law enforcement in the county. “In this place we can process and store evidence is such a way that it won’t jeopardize prosecutions and we can interview witnesses and suspects in a safe facility without parading them through the county building. But the biggest advantage is we are now in a facility that says ‘we are professionals.’ And the center has the space and technology available to train all local law enforcement keeping everyone up-to-date on the latest techniques needed to do our job, keeping the public safe and finding the criminal.”
The $44 million facility provides a home for five areas that were housed in five different locations in the county. The first to move was property and evidence, Forensics and the coroner’s office were next. Now investigations and patrol have taken up their functions and the last, yet to come, is administration, Court security and corrections will remain in Santa Cruz, along with neighborhood offices.
Sheriff Phil Wowak inspects the facilities during construction.
Each area in the new facility has photos of past sheriff’s, some going as far back as the late 1800’s, showing how they used to do the job in the old days. It’s a great reminder of how far law enforcement has come and also honoring those who went before.
“Our ability to get to our patrol areas throughout the county quickly is greatly improved. Since many of our calls originate in this area and we are closer to the center of the county, average incident processing times for our officers will be much reduced allowing them more time on patrol.” Wowak said.
Chief Deputy Jeff Marsh talks about the layout of the conference room.
The center has two garages, one with a vehicle lift. This allows investigators to process everything from an auto, to a truck, to a motor home in order to process and photograph vehicles used in crimes. Its evidence-processing system is modernized and streamlined, using bar codes to track evidence and even telling the department when it’s safe to destroy property no longer considered evidence.
The last of the five department areas to move into the new facility is administration sometime in January 2015 – ironically after Sheriff Wowak retires and has said goodbye for the last time to his job as Sheriff-Coroner.