By LEE HIGGINSHour Staff Writer
NORWALK -- Police took roll call at 7 a.m. Monday to mark the formal opening of the new $24 million police headquarters on the corner of South Main and Monroe streets. The three-story, 60,000-square-foot building was constructed in the heart of South Norwalk, an area the city has worked to revitalize in the face of drug dealing, loitering and prostitution. Mayor Alex Knopp, who helped plan the new headquarters, told the nearly 50 officers, police commissioners and others that the city is turning over to police a state-of-the-art building. However, he said, "What makes a great police force is not a great building, but great policeman." The Rev. Albert Ray Dancy and the Rev. Lindsey Curtis, both who lead churches in South Norwalk, led prayers and blessings to mark the occasion. Later in the morning, Police Chief Harry Rilling, a 44-year department veteran, suggested the move went smoothly and everybody was thrilled about the facility. "I think everything exceeded our expectations to a significant degree," said Rilling. "It's a huge project, but it was very seamless." The increased police presence would have an impact on a neighborhood where there's been "an open-air drug market," he said. "This area will not resemble the way it looked over the past several years," he said. "It will be a total change." The new facility, near the South Norwalk train station, has a number of features to improve prisoner security including a fenced in parking lot and a sallyport, a secure garage where prisoners can be unloaded from vehicles before being taken inside the facility. In addition, cells have doors instead of bars. "One of the things that we had encountered before was people trying to hang themselves from the bars," said Lt. Peter Randall, a police spokesman. The third floor contains a combined dispatch center, allowing police, fire and EMS calls to be dispatched from a single location, Michael Dolhancryk, director of combined dispatch and emergency preparedness planning, explained. "It's a team out there -- police, fire and EMS," said Dolhancryk. "The better communication you have among them the better off we'll all be." The center will be staffed by 23 full-time personnel, and is expected to improve response time by between 15 and 45 seconds. Having a combined dispatch center will allow for better incident management, Dolhancryk explained. "You have a domestic where physical violence has been used, you really don't want your ambulance or fire getting there first," he said. Compared to the last police station, where supervisory personnel had separate locker rooms from those underneath them, now everybody shares a single locker room. Randall noted that the philosophy behind it was to "increase the sense of camaraderie." Also, detectives now have their own work areas on the second floor, as opposed to sharing them. In addition six officers can use the firing range at once, which is two more than the old station. Randall expects the new headquarters to improve morale. "I think it's going to be extremely beneficial for the morale of the police department, but probably more important is the positive impact it's going to have for the community of South Norwalk," he said. "Really, I think it will become a focal point for the community. We welcome the community with open arms and we anticipate that relationship is going to be reciprocal." Sgt. Andre Velez, a 27-year department veteran, who started his career walking the beat on South Main and Monroe streets, suggested that the department has jumped forward a millennium with the new facility. He also expects the department will have an impact in South Norwalk. "We've intensified enforcement, we've come up with new tactics and probably we just had to move in," he said.