PAGE – Minor improvements and upgrades will soon be underway on a police substation at the defunct Teen Center on South Navajo Drive. The Page City Council recently approved $10,000 in funding for improvements at the old Teen Center that will be renovated as a police substation. The Teen Center was closed in recent years because the restrooms are not accessible for the disabled.

“So, the council has set aside the Teen Center in the (John C. Page Memorial Park) to be used as a police substation,” Page Police Detective Terry TerEick said.
The police substation will be equipped with computers, a few desks, and other things.

“Just bringing it back up to useable standards,” TerEick said. “So, it needs a little bit of upgrading before it can be used. The intention of it would be to provide a greater police presence in the park.”

Page Police Department has a headcount of around 23 police officers and when one of the officers needs to use an office facility, they have travel back to the department.
“Having a police substation would allow them to choose to go (to the substation) instead,” TerEick said. “And just having a police presence and people seeing police cars parked there, and the police being there. They (officers) can see out the windows if there’s something happening in the park.”

TerEick says the goal of this project is to increase public safety in the vicinity of the park.

“We receive numerous calls to the park every day, whether it be a person down, which is what we refer to as someone in the park who’s potentially passed out or dehydrated,” TerEick added, “or a fight in the park, or drug activity. We receive calls there daily and we’re hoping that having a police presence will provide a safer park for the residents (of Page).”

And this is a positive thing for the community, said Page Mayor Bill Diak, who added that there will also be resource officers (the common euphemism for police officers who are assigned to schools) deployed in schools within the Page Unified School District the coming school year.

“Believe it or not, just like a lot of other communities, we do have a lot of drug activity with students and others,” Diak said. “So, we’re going to put a (substation) there so that there’s police presence.”

TerEick says construction and renovation efforts will begin shortly and police officers might be able to start using it before the end of the summer.