BRUNSWICK

The Town Council unanimously voted Monday night to borrow up to $5.5 million to design, build and equip a new 20,000-square-foot, two-story police station at the corner of Pleasant and Stanwood streets.

Completion of the plan would quadruple the police department’s current space and bring to a close a decades-long discussion over getting the department out of the basement of the municipal building at 28 Federal St.

But organizers of a petition that halted the town’s efforts to buy the land at that corner for $1.1 million in late 2010 vowed Monday to trigger a petition process that would allow townspeople to decide the fate of the $5.5 million borrowing proposal at the ballot box.

Karen Klatt, a critic of the project and circulator of the 2010 petition, said after Monday’s meeting that she plans to challenge Monday’s decision by petition as well, a task that would require signatures from 5 percent of Brunswick’s registered voters.

Monday night, councilors weighed the option of sending the plan to voters for approval by referendum. The council rejected doing so by a 2-7 vote — with councilors Sarah Brayman and John Perreault in support of a referendum — before unanimously backing outright approval of borrowing $5.5 million to build the station.

During public comments, opinions split on how the decision should be made.

Resident Dan Harris argued to the council that “a referendum is just an abdication of your responsibilities — it’s just punting the thing to someone else.”

Others, including Louise Rosen, suggested that “this is a vote that should go out to the community” after her comments criticizing both the process and specifics of the project, such as the location.

John Donovan, a member of the police station building subcommittee, signed and promoted the petition to send the town’s purchase of four properties at the corner of Pleasant and Stanwood streets to a referendum vote.

The successful petition led to the council withdrawing the ordinance and reconfiguring a subcommittee — adding more citizen representatives — to study and craft a plan for the police station project.

“Having served on that despite my initial misgivings, the committee members approached it in a fair, reasonable and rational manner,” Donovan said. “We spent the last two years dealing with the issue, and there were not very many members of the public that came to our meetings. Now is the time to deal with the issue and get it done. As we’ve seen based on the record of the past 25 years, it’s not cheaper when you delay, so I suggest that you do not acquiesce to the call to go to referendum.”

The plea struck particular resonance for council chairwoman Joanne King, who announced Monday that she would not seek re-election this fall for her at-large Town Council seat, citing nine years of work on the council trying to advance a police station project.

“I think that’s about enough due diligence on any project,” King said prior to her motion to approve the bond ordinance.

Other commenters took issue with the timing of the project, citing a bad economy and asking: Why now?

Holding up a cardboard wall panel, Sonia Moeller, a police station communications supervisor, addressed that argument.

“Since I was hired, I was told, ‘Don’t mind the mess here, we’re going to get a new building,’” Moeller said. “And that was 25 years ago.”

Since moving to Brunswick in 1977, Moeller said she’s seen numerous town buildings built, fixed or renovated while multiple efforts to renovate or build a new police station have fallen by the wayside.

“I’m trying to stay upbeat and positive and hoping that there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” Moeller said. “You’re proud of our schools and our fire station and we need to step back and say we’re as proud of our police station as these other buildings.”

Any petition of the ordinance approved Monday night must be turned in within 20 days, according to Town Clerk Fran Smith.

If no petition is filed, Town Manager Gary Brown said Monday that construction crews could be on site as soon as early October.

Should a petition succeed and call for a referendum vote, the council would then have to decide when to hold the vote.

Smith said that such a vote could be done in a special election before the November general election at an estimated cost of $5,000 or during the November election, which Smith said would mean a negligible increase in the election cost.

If petitioners succeed and the council schedules a November vote, Brown said, the earliest construction crews and subcontractors with the project’s construction manager, Ledgewood Associates, could be on site as early as January.

Currently, the Brunswick Development Corp. owns the land at Stanwood and Pleasant streets and has signed an understanding with the town stating that “the BDC intentions are limited to providing these properties to the town of Brunswick for the police station project.”

That letter, sent to the council Nov. 30 of last year, stated that the land would be transferred to the town following approval of the police station project.

Brown has said that the current plan is for the town to transfer the municipal building at 28 Federal St. to the BDC in exchange for the property at Pleasant and Stanwood streets. On Monday, Brown said an appraisal on 28 Federal St. is the works.

John Eldridge, the town’s finance director, said he expects interest rates on a town bond to come in at 3 percent or lower.

In the first year, that bond would mean around $440,000 in interest payments for the town.

In a June 14 memo, Brown wrote that $400,000 has been set aside in the town’s “other road construction” account in anticipation of making those interest payments on the bond in the coming year.

¦ MONDAY NIGHT, councilors weighed the option of sending the plan to voters for approval by referendum. The council rejected doing so by a 2-7 vote before unanimously backing outright approval of borrowing $5.5 million to build the station.