Dusty wood chips and a few discarded Styrofoam cups fill the brick-lined planters. From the rippling glass on the front door, it looks like someone tried to kick in the entrance, and a vandal has tagged illegible cursive letters on the East Salinas storefront. While these are common signs of blight for a vacant building, the tenant in this case is the Salinas Police Department.

More than a year after the City signed the $1-a-year lease for a police satellite office, the site remains unused. The walls have a fresh coat of white paint but there is no carpet. Other than its painted address, 31 S. Sanborn Rd., the graffiti is the only insignia on the property. A pile of furniture and boxes notwithstanding, there is no sign that police will occupy the building at the corner of East Alisal Street and South Sanborn Road.

Deputy Chief Cassie McSorley says the department will eventually fix up the place. Officers will be able to conduct interviews, hold meetings and take a pit stop in East Salinas. The department, McSorley says, hasn’t calculated how much refurbishing the site will cost and there is no timeline to open the substation. “It would be a convenient place for people to be able to meet an officer,” she says. “The biggest thing is the public’s perception of having police presence in the area.”

The substation hasn’t opened sooner, McSorley says, because the department has been focused on fully utilizing the shiny and high-tech mobile command station. The $400,000 rig spends part of its time in the East Salinas business corridor, the same area where the substation site is located.

City Councilman Tony Barrera says a stronger police presence is needed in East Salinas, where most residents live and the majority of gang violence occurs. The police department, on the other hand, is located in downtown Salinas.

“I’m concerned,” Barrera says. “I think a police substation will really enhance the area where we can do policing and enforce the area out there.”

Councilman Sergio Sanchez also says he wants an East Salinas substation, but is pleased with how much the department has been using the mobile command vehicle. “We can only staff so many facilities,” Sanchez says, adding that police officers have worked a lot of overtime lately due to the recent spike in gang-related shootings. Salinas has had four homicides and about two dozen attempted murders in the first four months of this year.

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In the ‘90s the police department operated a fully-staffed substation at the corner of Del Monte Avenue and North Sanborn Road. But grant money ran dry, and police could no longer man the building. McSorley says the department kept the site open as a storefront until several years ago when the landlord opted not to lease it out anymore.

Then, in 2005, the store director of Foods Co. offered 1,500 square feet of nearly rent-free space to the police. The City Council approved a five-year lease for the South Sanborn Road satellite office in March 2006.

The site has at least two private meeting rooms. Two busy shopping centers flank the store front. “The Foods Co. property is a logical location because it’s far enough away from the police department, and it is a high traffic location,” McSorley says.

But she says the location needs carpet and a separate meter to get it up and running. Even then, residents wouldn’t be able to drop in to file police reports.

With 25 vacancies in its force, the department doesn’t have enough officers to staff a substation. City officials hope that a recent pay raise will help recruiting efforts. Officers received a 5 percent raise in April, the beginning of a 25 percent pay increase that will put Salinas police officers among the highest paid law enforcers in the county.

Perhaps with more sworn officers, the department will be able to move into the East Salinas substation—or at least put a police logo out front.