Chickamauga Police Department moves to City Hall

Moving an entire police department is very much like moving a family into a new house.

There are never enough boxes to pack things in. The space being vacated seems much bigger when empty. And things thought lost are sometimes found.

“A good thing is that you find out what you do have,” Chickamauga Police Chief Micheal Haney said.

Chief Haney said he’s spent several weeks moving file cabinets and office furniture and packing framed photographs of former top cops, some dating to the days of horseless carriages.

The police department is moving from a downtown building across from Gordon-Lee High School to Chickamauga City Hall, about a mile away on the north end of town.

“This will save on utilities, maintenance and should improve security,” Chief Haney said.

The department’s new space is slightly smaller in overall square footage, but is more useable, he said. Sharing space saves officers from having to drive between the buildings.

“Just keeping the computer network active between the two buildings was a headache,” Chief Haney said. “Consolidating our data and telephone services should save more than $5,000 a year.”

During the packing, officers found wrapped stacks of incident report forms, relics from pre-computer days, on shelves of seldom-used closets.

They uncovered boxes of trinkets once handed out to schoolchildren — colorful wooden pencils, key chains emblazoned with outdated telephone numbers, refrigerator magnets more than a dozen years old.

Evidence stored in a former jail cell — “they claim the iron bars date from the Civil War” — has been transferred and the move should be complete within a few days, according to Chickamauga City Manager John Culpepper.

“This move is a matter of economics,” Mr. Culpepper said. “It will save on utilities — every way you can save a penny is good for us.”

Renting the building that once housed city hall as well as the police department to a qualified tenant also could generate revenue for the city, he said.

The move will make it easier for residents to file or pick up copies of police reports, since officers spend most of their shift on patrol and not in the office.

“It will make it more convenient for the citizens to have everything under one roof,” said Cpl. Kenny Evans, who works the night shift. “It won’t really be that different for us.”