Norwich ―Voters will be asked to decide on two major spending items in referendums on the Nov. 7 election ballot: whether to build a new $44.75 million new police station and spend an additional $6 million to continue a citywide road improvement plan.

Police and city leaders have advocated for a new police station for more than a decade, as the cramped and obsolete facilities at the 1979-80 station at 70 Thames St. became more problematic, especially due to the lack of accommodations for the growing number of female officers.

The City Council in September voted to ask voters on the referendum ballot if they would authorize bonding $44.75 million for a 50,000-square-foot police headquarters that would include a community room, training classrooms, an emergency operations center, main desk, dispatch center, areas for the public, prisoner processing, detention and transport, an armory, parking and electric vehicle charging stations.

While the ordinance does not name a site, the City Council voted unanimously Oct. 2 to purchase a nearly 30-acre vacant lot off Ox Hill Road behind the Rose City Senior Center for $385,000 as the site for the station.

On Oct. 16, the council voted to use $385,000 from the city’s federal American Rescue Plan Act grant to purchase the Ox Hill Road land.

The proposed police station would need about three acres, and city officials are considering the land closest to the senior center for future municipal purposes, including the police station. The rest of the land would be added to Mohegan Park, which borders the land.

The city plans to apply for state and federal grants to reduce the cost of borrowing to the local taxpayers.

Since the police station bond was placed on the Nov. 7 ballot, city leaders are restricted in what they can say about the project. State law prohibits any use of city funds, including staff time, to advocate approval or opposition to a referendum item.

The Rev. Charles Tyree, a member of the volunteer police chaplain corps, formed a political action committee to raise money and campaign for approval of the new police station. The group has raised more than $2,000 to pay for billboard advertisements, lawn signs and to offer to speak with residents about the current station’s shortcomings.

Voters in 2012 rejected a $33 million plan to convert the former Sears building downtown into a police station. Three years later, the city sought to lease a police headquarters facility from a private developer, avoiding a referendum. But city leaders rejected all bids from private developers for a leased police headquarters.

The second referendum question is a request to bond $6 million for road and bridge construction and related drainage work on streets throughout the city. Voters have approved similar road bonds five times since 2009, most recently for $5 million in 2019. The Public Works Department asked for $6 million this year due to the rising costs of paving materials.

c.bessette@theday.com