Bel Air officials say it's time to discuss security issues in and around Town Hall, one of the oldest and least secure government buildings in Harford County.
The subject came up during the tail end of a town commissioners and staff work session Tuesday afternoon, first mentioned by Commissioner Edward Hopkins as a possible future topic, maybe even at a staff retreat, if they decide to hold one later this year.
Hopkins said the Town Board and town staff had begun to discuss security issues with the 50-year-old building on Hickory Avenue just before Police Chief Leo Matrangola went out on an extended medical leave last October from which he is yet to return.
He also noted that bollards have been erected at the base of the steps leading to the building's main entrance to thwart someone trying to drive a vehicle through the building's glass-front center which is about 20 feet from the street.
Finance Director Lisa Moody said they put $25,000 for possible security upgrades into the 2014-15 budget approved last summer, but had done nothing further.
Public Works Director Stephen Kline said there was some discussion of erecting bulletproof glass along the base of the raised dais where the fire commissioners, town administrator, town counsel and two aides sit during town meetings, as well as around the table where department heads sit at floor level along one wall perpendicular to the dais.
He wryly noted that in his case, Acting Chief of Police Jack Meckley sits just to his left, between Kline and the audience.
It was also pointed out that putting glass along the front of the dais would essentially mean the commissioners would duck and cover behind the meeting table if there was a shooting incident.
Town Commissioner Susan Burdette said they had also discussed putting a door behind the dais that would lead to a sort of panic room if the commissioners and staff were in any danger.
Of a more practical note, Moody said they have talked about putting security cameras in the meeting room and other public areas, as well as panic buttons under the commissioners and staff's tables.
Meckley said some concerns about the town hall security may be legitimate. The main level of the building off of Hickory Avenue houses town offices and the meeting room, while a lower level houses the police department, which has a separate, secure entrance toward the rear of its level.
Pointing out recent police shootings in Pennsylvania and New York where officers were targeted, Meckley pointed out that most people in around and Bel Air see the building "as the police station, not the town hall."
Someone armed and looking to do harm to police officers, he noted, might very well walk into the main entrance of the building and hurt the town staff on the main level thinking they were part of the police.
"We are protected," he said of the building's police level. "You are wide open."
Hopkins, who is also director of emergency services for Harford County, works in one of the most secure government buildings in the county, the $36 million-plus Emergency Operations and 911 Center building that opened in November.
Before that, he was the chief deputy in the Harford County Sheriff's Office, whose headquarters in Bel Air features a secure lobby and the bollards placed in front to keep a vehicle from ramming the front door are at least twice as strong looking as the ones in front of town hall.
Like Hopkins, Meckley was a high ranking officer in the Sheriff's Office and, while there, both worked under then-sheriff Jesse Bane, who was recently hired by the town as its chief administrative officer.
Bane, who was presiding over his first commissioners work session, did not comment during the security discussion, but listened attentively and took notes, as everyone else sitting around the table in the unsecured conference room agreed the security concerns need more discussion
Among local and state government buildings Bel Air Town Hall, which opened in 1964, is unique for a number of reasons. It has a very open floor plan, with no reception area or lobby to screen visitors. Someone walking through the front door steps right into the commissioners' meeting room. There are offices to the right for administrative staff, easily accessible, and offices to the left for the finance staff that are more secure, although the same hallway leads to public rest rooms.
There is no security guard – or guards – on duty at any time, including at the town meetings, which are typically the least attended among public meetings in the county, with the audience often numbering fewer than five people. By contrast, the county government's main office buildings in Bel Air have security officers on duty day and night and visitors must register when entering. People attending Harford County Council meetings must go through metal detectors, as does anyone entering the Circuit or District courthouses.
Even the newer city halls in Havre de Grace and Aberdeen have public lobbies that visitors must enter before they are permitted by staff to enter office areas. But, as with Bel Air, typically, the only person armed at those two cities' public council meetings are the chiefs of police or their substitutes.
Although Harford County Public Schools has a public lobby in its Bel Air headquarters where visitors are screened by receptionists and typically are met in the lobby by those they wish to see, no security guards are present for the school board's meetings for which the building's main outside doors are left open.
Harford County public officials aren't alone in expressing concerns about their security, which has become a hot button issue nationally in the wake of White House fence jumpers, terrorist threats and recent targeted shootings of elected officials and police officers.
Such concerns got unwelcome publicity locally during December, however, when newly installed County Council President Richard Slutzky declared that, for the first time since the council came into existence in 1972, members of the public and the media could not approach council members on their dais after meetings because of concerns for his and the other members' security.
The resulting public furor was fed by the realization that none of the other council six council members was consulted before Slutzky announced the new policy out of concerns about so-called "lone wolf" terrorists. The council president rescinded the policy two weeks later, but did not change any of the other security measures in force at council meetings, such as armed guards and the metal detector.