By Michelle Bates

The Arcadia Police Department may soon be getting some much-needed upgrades and repairs, depending on what can be done, Police Chief Ciera Murphy said.

In Arcadia’s monthly council meeting Tuesday, Jan. 9, Murphy said the department is in need of several things, among them, an interrogation room, an evidence room and hopefully a place for dispatch.

“When I initially took office, we looked at doing some renovations so that we could add an interrogation room, an evidence room and I was looking at doing a dispatch room,” she said. “We looked at adding an evidence closet into an old office, putting a door access on our hall where the water clerk used to be for dispatch, and some repairs in our patrol room.”

Other repairs would include closing up and repairing holes in walls in the hallway where wiring is showing and other repairs as needed.

In the interrogation room, audio/visual equipment would be added, and the dispatch room would need radios, a computer and printer, she added.

“It just helps when you have your own dispatch,” Murphy said, “because at the sheriff’s office, they’re dispatching for everyone in the parish, and running 911. We have times where if something else is going on in Ringgold or somewhere else, officers have to be put on hold for radio traffic and things like that. If we have dispatch, we would be able to dispatch at night, which means we would qualify for a state grant, because you have to have someone on duty dispatching 24 hours a day.”

No bids or estimates were given on cost as of yet. Murphy was asked by the council to come back in February with three bids from contractors for the scope of the work and how much it would cost.

“It doesn’t do us any good (to discuss it) until we know what it’s going to cost,” District 2 Councilwoman Melanie Monroe said. “If she’s going to stay down here (at town hall), then she needs it. We can’t just bypass what she needs.”

The chief looked at the old bank building drive-through as a possibility to move the police department, but Mayor O’Landis Millican said he had a renter for it. However, he did not reveal the type of business or the business name during the meeting.

If the town enters into a contract with a renter, the council will have to approve the contract.

The police department renovations were tabled until February.