MOUNTAINBURG (KFSM) — From the beginning, Mountainburg police officers have been operating out of a tiny space inside City Hall.
“A lot of people didn’t realize there was no police station in Mountainburg before,” Chief Vincent Clamser said. “We’re excited to have our own station.”
Mountainburg police, their K9 officer and the court clerk all share a 200 sq. ft. room next to the City Hall office.
“The problem that we have is that we've outgrown that space,” Clamser said.
Just next door to city hall is an old house that was donated to the city years ago. For nearly four decades, it’s been used for storage.
“I was in there one day looking at things and thought this would make a great police station,” Clamser said.
When the renovations are complete, it will have a lobby for visitors, an evidence room, a detective/interrogation room, a work space for the eight officer on staff, an office for Chief Clamser and a fenced in yard for their police dog.
“A lot of the work that we've had to do on it has been volunteer work,” he said. “There wasn't a lot of money we had in our budget to go toward it, so we've gotten a lot of great support from the community.”
Resident Lanora Drummond added, “I’ve lived here 20+ years. I think we need it.”
Congressman Bruce Westerman also paid a visit to Mountainburg on Monday (May 8) to meet with police and the city’s mayor.
“That's a refreshing thing to see when you stop somewhere and they're not just telling you they need more money to do something that they took the initiative on their own and the community's coming together to do this new police station,” Westerman said.
Chief Clamser said they plan on moving into their new station the first weekend of June.