Planning Meeting and Construction Update

On Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010, members of the NTC PSTI EVOC Workgroup met at Miramar College to kick off our next phase of our project.  This was the first in a series of meetings that will be conducted twice each month to keep momentum going as we work towards our ultimate goal.

Attending from the San Diego Community College District was Richard Burkhart, Construction Manager;  Scott Ellis, Project Manager-Continuing Ed;  and George Beitey, Dean, School of Public Safety, San Diego Miramar College.  From the San Diego Police Dept.:  Lt. John Leas,  Sgt. John Trent and Sgt. Kevin Rausis. From the San Diego Fire Rescue Dept.:  Ken Barnes, Battalion Chief, and guest Chris Webber, representing our Region's Urban Search And Rescue (USAR) group.  From the San Diego County Sheriff’s Dept.:  Brian Sampson, Director, Support Services; and Lt. Dave Moss, Academy Director.  Future meetings will include City of San Diego staff from the Development Services, Real Estate Assets and the Redevelopment Agency-Community Planning Departments.  Their expertise, guidance and support will be crucial as we work through the necessary goverment agency approvals.

Our discussion centered first on developing an MOU between the City, County and Community College District, to identify our respective roles, commitments and responsibilities during the development and eventual rollout of EVOC at NTC.  Each group is working internally to identify construction, operation and maintenance expenses specific to their entity. We are also evaluating projected personnel staffing and training equipment needs for the EVOC facility.  Eventually, we'll reconvene to discuss, modify and draft the EVOC MOU for approval by each Director on our Board.  All attendees agreed we need to identify as much as possible now to avoid ambiguity later.

Discussion also covered the need to prepare a seperate MOU for a potential parking lot vendor after Phase I construction is completed.  Because of the two phase construction timetable and logistics with moving the Fire/EMT Program off their present site (in our Phase II construction area), the opportunity exists to use the completed Phase I area temporarily as a parking lot servicing airport patrons.  If this option presents itself, the MOU will need to include agreements as to who draws up the RFP for the vendor, how parking revenues are disbursed and where the revenues will ultimately land.  The Project Team would like to see parking revenues placed into the NTC EVOC Revenue Account for use in funding Phase II construction as well as support ongoing operation and maintenance expenses.  Our 66 year lease agreement with the City of San Diego defines various uses of the property and this issue will require further negotiation to define the outcome in our MOU.

Richard Burkhart reminded us that the College District has Prop S and N bond money for the construction of the EVOC, Fire/EMT program and Academy program, for a total of $30 million. The District’s goal is to build EVOC at NTC, move the Fire/EMT program from NTC to a new site and also complete renovations, deferred maintenance and improvements to our existing Regional Academy facility at Miramar College.  It is clear to all of us that the College District is highly committed to their School of Public Safety.


Guest Chris Webber from San Diego Fire Rescue inquired about the status of the existing buildings 66-70 at NTC.  USAR uses these buildings for training and drills and he was concerned they would be demolished prior to USAR’s scheduled June qualification drills.  The Project Team advised they would be available one last time for their qualification drills, then demolished afterwards.

Many other minor discussions took place during this meeting.  George Beitey, Dean of Public Safety suggested we take our design plan for NTC and set it up to scale in the parking lot at Qualcomm Stadium to test and evaluate the viability of our proposed layout.  We all agreed and Leas and Rausis will coordinate this in the near future.

As a sidenote, you may have noticed the SD Airport Authority contractors have been busy working on the McCain Blvd and N. Harbor Drive entrance to PSTI (see photos on side bar).  They are doing an excellent job and ultimately will cut into the center median of N. Harbor Drive, install a traffic signal and greatly improve ingress and egress for all of us.  This should make for a very nice entrance to our facility when it is completed.

That's the latest for now.  Remember to take the survey (see side bar) as it will close March 15th.  Look for the results in a future posting after that time.