Boulder’s newest resident, the Montana Highway Patrol, moved in last week.
After pushing its planned arrival from late June to early August because of delays completing renovations, the MHP officially began using the North Campus of the former Montana Developmental Center as its headquarters on Aug. 10. The facility was expected to house about 25 employees, most of whom are uniformed officers, and some are considering relocating to Boulder, Sgt. Jay Nelson, a special operations commander who is a spokesman for the Highway Patrol, told The Monitor previously.
The new facility is a vast improvement from the cramped, rented quarters in Helena that the agency used from 1996 until last week. Nelson and Col. Steve Lavin, who commands the Highway Patrol, pegged the Boulder facility’s ample storage, vast acreage of open space, and diverse array of highly configurable and versatile buildings as the site’s main draw. That, plus, “it truly is, for the most part, turnkey,” Nelson said. “Just the office space itself is a huge improvement from what we had.”
The Boulder facility came into Highway Patrol possession on April 12, when Gov. Greg Gianforte transferred the former state institution from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services to the Department of Justice. Montana’s Highway Patrol falls under the state DOJ. Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who took office on Jan. 1, previously credited Chief Deputy Attorney General Kris Hansen, a former state representative and senator, with proposing the facility for Highway Patrol use. Hansen was familiar with the MDC’s closure from her time in the statehouse, Knudsen said.
Chief among the new facility’s advantages is its ability to house Highway Patrol cadet academies and trainings the patrol offers to other agencies statewide. The agency currently conducts academies at a facility in the Helena Valley, Nelson said, and although basic police academies for new officers at the patrol and statewide will remain at that facility, the Highway Patrol’s advanced academy, required for its troopers, could eventually move to Boulder.
“All the interworkings that make an academy are here,” he said, including housing, athletic facilities, classrooms, equipment storage and a large commercial kitchen. He said that the agency spent $65,000 on housing people in hotels last year—an expense that would be eliminated by the new facility if people stay on site.
Housing academies in Boulder is “phase two” of the move, and will be completed sometime in the future, Nelson said. For now, the first phase of the move entailed shifting the patrol’s headquarters infrastructure to Boulder. That’s all of the “overall administration” of the Highway Patrol, he said, including the chief administrator, information technology, agency records, financial administration, equipment and vehicle fleet supply, the department that oversees officer conduct, and accompanying staff. A warehouse and shop adjacent to the administration building will house the agency’s “radio shop,” which transforms vehicles into patrol cars. The MDC North Campus maintenance staff remained with the facility through the ownership transfer.
“The Boulder community has really embraced the MHP with open arms,” Nelson told the Helena Independent Record last week. “You can’t help but sort of envision the future and all the possibilities this place holds.”
