The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is operating in a more spacious and modern substation in the northern part of the county.
The new North Zone substation has opened at 26 Dillon Plaza Drive in High Ridge, just two doors down from the previous one, which opened in 1995 in the shopping plaza off Hwy. 30.
“With the expansion and renovation, our officers get to work in a professional environment,” Sheriff Dave Marshak said. “Citizens that enter our offices want to feel they are working with a competent police force, and the old substation did not instill the confidence that we were a professional organization.”
Undersheriff Tim Whitney said the Sheriff’s Office paid about $289,000 to renovate the 2,589-square-foot space in the retail complex.
He said the department will pay $1,666 per month this year to rent the space. That cost will increase incrementally each year to $1,892 per month by 2025.
Marshak said the previous substation, which was at 34 Dillon Plaza Drive, had just 1,400 square feet of space.
“It will allow us to interact with the citizens in this part of the county more so than we have been able to in the past,” Whitney said of the larger substation. “If you live in High Ridge or House Springs, it is easier to come there than to drive to Hillsboro (where the Sheriff’s Office headquarters is located).
“It provides deputies who are working in this part of the county a place to complete reports, paperwork and meet with their supervisors without having to drive to other offices. Our footprint is incredibly large as a Sheriff’s office. We cover over 600 square miles of Jefferson County. Having satellite offices such as this is incredibly important to us to improve efficiency.”
Whitney said the North Zone substation allows deputies a place to do work that cannot be completed on their in-vehicle computers, such as printing reports or logging evidence.
“It is important when they are working this area that they have a place to go to do those things without driving to Hillsboro,” he said. “That way they are still close to the community. If they are called for service, the response time is much lower than if they had to go to Hillsboro to do those same things.”
Marshak said the larger substation allows supervisors to hold training sessions in the North Zone and meet with a group of deputies indoors.
“For large meetings, our supervisors literally had deputies standing in a circle behind the (old substation) building for briefings,” he said.
Whitney said because the new substation has a meeting room, the Sheriff’s Office will hold a Citizens Academy there in the spring.
The Citizens Academy is a 12-week course that offers a chance to learn about how law enforcement officers are trained to handle a variety of scenarios. The spring academy is typically held March through May, and Whitney said the exact dates for the 2023 academy will be announced later.
Whitney also said the Sheriff’s Office now will be able to hold meetings with community members at the location.
Previously area residents had to find meeting spaces at area firehouses or churches to meet with the Sheriff’s Office in large groups.
“It is a resource to the community,” Whitney said of the substation. “We can hold meetings here. There are times residents in subdivisions want to meet and speak with the Sheriff’s Office, and now, we have the space to do those things.”
The substation is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.
At the substation, residents may seek advice; file complaints and police reports; get background checks and fingerprinting done, Whitney said.
“We chose those hours because we had years of study from the previous office, and those were the hours we found the majority of the people came to file reports or to speak to a deputy,” he said.
More changes
Marshak said substations were established under former Sheriff Glenn Boyer with the High Ridge location being the first of them.
In 2002, a South Zone substation was added to the Jefferson College campus in Hillsboro, and in 2003, an East Zone substation was established on the Windsor C-1 School District campus in Imperial.
The South Zone substation was closed in 2021.
“Once (Jefferson College) established their own police department it didn’t make sense to have officers overlapping forces,” Marshak said. “When the time is right, we will establish a new substation to better serve the citizens in the south end of the county.”
He also said the Sheriff’s Office may soon announce plans to move its East Zone substation.
“The Windsor School District has been a great partner to us, but our needs and substation expectations have changed,” Marshak said. “The Sheriff’s Office has used the top floor of (the district’s former) administration building as a substation. It doesn’t work for several reasons.
“One example is that when the football team is using the lower level, it’s difficult for officers to focus on writing their reports and conduct law enforcement business with the noise and smell. We hope to announce a new strategic partnership in October.”