Efforts to improve the level of security at Bel Air Town Hall are picking up speed, as town leaders recently viewed plans to create more secure main entrance and reception areas for the finance and administration offices.
Town Administrator Jesse Bane said the upgrades are necessary, "given the state of society today and things that are going on and security being a main concern." We heartily concur.
Among government buildings in and around Harford County, Bel Air Town Hall, built 52 years ago, is far and away the least secure of the lot. Even some other buildings of the same vintage such as the Sheriff's Office headquarters in Bel Air and the main county administrative center at 220 S. Main St. were long ago retrofitted to be secure for employees and visitors alike.
Making Bel Air Town Hall more secure won't be easy. The main street level entrance opens right to the commissioners meeting area – and there is floor to ceiling glass on that side of the room.
Bane pointed out some of the expected changes will be radical: "We need to make sure that the commissioners are comfortable with this, because it is going to be a change in the way things happen when the public walks into Town Hall," he said during a commissioners' work session July 12.
The proposed security improvements include putting another entrance in front of the existing recessed front door off Hickory Avenue to create a vestibule that visitors would walk through before coming into the main meeting room. A consultant working on possible upgrades described it as an "air lock."
There will be controlled access points to staff offices on the first floor, just as the police department headquarters on the building's lower level already is controlled access.
The commissioners' main meeting room and their side conference room will remain open to the public. The glass panels on the Hickory Avenue side will be tempered, but not bulletproof, at least not at this point, because of the cost.
This prompted some debate among the commissioners and consultants, although Police Chief Chuck Moore noted bulletproof rated glass is only good for stopping small caliber rounds, not necessarily reassuring information. Perhaps the glass panels ought to go completely, because the proposed airlock will render them superfluous anyway.
Regardless what is done, Town Hall needs to be more secure. Times we live in aside, it makes good sense. A public meeting area shouldn't be open to a potential drive-by shooting.