Peculiar weighs options after voters reject bond for new police department, court

PECULIAR, Mo. — The City of Peculiar is heading back to the drawing board after voters rejected a $4 million bond issue to build a new police station and municipal court.

Peculiar City Council weighed four options presented by Police Chief Don Shepard Monday night. Everyone seemed in agreement the worst option is to do nothing and keep running their police station and court in a strip mall with a salon.

“Police officers belong in a police department not in a strip mall. No city our size or bigger has a police department or a municipal court in a strip mall,” Chief Shepard said.

In April, Peculiar PD and the court were hoping to be on the move to the new $4 million building that would have been built on city land about a mile from its current location.

“In my opinion—and I’m certainly not a professional—your building sucks and you guys deserve to have a new facility,” Carol Jensen said.

More than 50 percent in the city of about 6,000 voted yes, but not enough to meet the required 4/7 majority for the bond measure.

“If we go off what the comments were last time, if we change the location, I feel like this will be successful,” Mayor Doug Stark said.

Though no formal vote was taken, most seemed to support building somewhere else that would require also buying the land, taking the estimated price tag up to $6 million.

The previous bond would have raised property taxes of an average home about $57, this could be more, though they’d hope to offset some costs selling the strip mall.

“The budget is extremely tight to the penny and there is no realistic way to move the P.D. in its current parameters without a bond. I wish there was but that’s not the reality of the situation,” Chief Shepard said.

They debated trying to get this on the ballot in November, when more people will be voting in the Presidential Election. But it appears they’ll likely wait until next Spring to give people more time to review the plan.

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