15 Jul San Pablo to Spend More on Controversial ‘Cop Campus’

A digital rendering of the new San Pablo Police headquarters facility expected to open next year. (Screenshot captured by Samantha Kennedy / The CC Pulse)

By Samantha Kennedy

Opposition to San Pablo’s approved multi-million police headquarters and training facility has led to a few protests, but there was barely a peep when the San Pablo City Council approved another chunk of money for the site.

A reappropriation of $76,000 in unspent American Rescue Plan Act funds for facility technological expenses and a $729,000 furniture package was unanimously approved at the July 10 meeting as part of the project’s $44 million price tag. The ARPA funding is leftover from a 2022 allocation for broadband, fiber and wireless infrastructure projects.

The San Pablo City Council did not plan to discuss the funding, instead placing the item on the consent calendar for a single vote without discussion among council members.

“I think you don’t want to hear from the community anymore,” said Janet Pottier, the only speaker during public comment for the consent calendar. “I think it was your fear of the people who come now and then that they were going to disrupt the meeting, but that is their right and they should have enough time to know (about actions being taken).”

Council members Abel Pineda and Elizabeth Pabon-Alvarado appeared hesitant before voting to support the funding.

“It maybe would have been good to also include this in a future meeting,” said Pineda.

San Pablo City Council meetings are regularly scheduled for the first and third Mondays of each month at 6 p.m., but the special meeting, which was primarily for a housing policy workshop and advertised by the city of San Pablo as such, took place at 5 p.m. on a Wednesday.

As recently as July 1, local activists have organized events to protest the construction of the facility that they call a “cop campus” — a two-story, 42,000-square-foot facility with a 20-lane gun range that is planned to double as a regional training facility — and have criticized its cost, potential harm on residents and lack of transparency of the project and police department.

Two years after building a new police headquarters and training facility, plans for the new regional training facility were released in 2021, showing nearly $30 million in funding from bonds and community support, according to a 2021 public safety survey of 300 residents.

Reporting by Bay City News showed that respondents were not entirely representative of San Pablo’s population, including an underrepresentation of Hispanic residents.

Those polled in the 2021 public safety survey largely opposed the ongoing Defund the Police movement, which looked to shift funds from police departments to other services and acted as some of the foundation for opposition to San Pablo’s police facility.

“Cop Cities are a push to militarize the police department and arm and train police on how to repress our communities,” a May press release put out by the Anti-Police Terror Project to oppose San Pablo’s facility said. “Basically creating military bases for the police. Historically, police do not keep us safe, yet there are Sixty-nine cop cities being built across the USA.”

Despite criticism, supporters say the project will boost the local economy by attracting outside agencies to city businesses during training, create workforce opportunities for Contra Costa College students, and support mental health services already provided by the county.

Construction is expected to be completed in 2025.