A committee composed of various members of the Wareham Police Department, Emergency Medical Services, and interested citizens met Thursday night to begin work toward a new public safety complex.

The group elected Town Moderator Claire Smith as Chair, who has served on Police Station Building Committees in the past — most recently from 2005 to 2007.

Smith described the work done by the previous committee, including an intensive study of the current station and recommendations about what was needed for a new building. That report gives the current committee a boost, as much of the material gathered on the state of the current building still applies. That proposal was denied by the Selectmen, due in part to concerns about the cost of the project.

At the committee’s next meeting, they will take a tour of the current Wareham Police Station before taking a quick trip to the Dartmouth Police Department headquarters, which opened in 2019. That will be the first of many site visits by the committee, who will look at the buildings to find out what works well for other departments, get ideas, and ask about the sometimes unexpected pitfalls encountered during construction.

Lt. John Gerard said that at several stations he has visited, ventilation has come up as a concern. At one station, miscommunication between contractors left some rooms unheated for months.

Acting Chief John Walcek pointed out a construction challenge unique to police stations: The importance of having proper facilities to handle and store evidence. Police need to be able to track evidence at all times, and the failure to do so can devastate a court case. The current station is so low on storage that Wareham police have to use a trailer behind the station to store some evidence, and a detective is in charge of making sure nothing gets misplaced.

A committee member pointed out that materials needed to be carefully chosen in areas where people who have been arrested are held: drywall and sheet rock can be punched through fairly easily, whereas concrete block is much sturdier.

Response times are another variable being considered as the committee considers various sites for the new building, including the current location on Cranberry Highway, town-owned land on Minot Avenue which is close to the geographic center of town, and the site of the John W. Decas School on Main St., which will be closed in 2022.

The group will also be working to anticipate the department’s future needs, and trying to design a station that will accommodate the police for at least fifty years. That means they will likely be looking at projections for the town’s population growth, and building a station with room for the town — and police force — to grow.