Library/city hall visitors, workers won’t be screened with metal detectors in Calabasas
By Gregory Koteles
Special to The Acorn

There are no skyscrapers in Calabasas. There are neither airports nor military bases, no embassies, major universities or federal buildings. Nevertheless, council-members in Calabasas are looking for ways to prepare for a possible terrorist attack.

At the behest of City Councilwoman Lesley Devine, an initial proposal "to provide recommendations on how to heighten security in the city hall-library building" was approved at a meeting of the city council early last month. The solution proposed by City Man ager Donald Duckworth at the next regular meeting two weeks later was a uniformed security guard armed with a metal detector wand.

A guard would monitor the front door of city hall 16 hours a day, five days a week at $15 an hour (about $62,000 annually). According to a representative for Secure All, the company approached with the contract, "anyone who entered through the front door would be wanded for any types of weapons."

City staff and children entering the library wouldn’t have been exempt from the process.

"I don’t like that at all," said Mayor Janice Lee. "It sends a message to our children that we are so paranoid that we can’t even let them go into a library without being searched. That just doesn’t sit well with me."

Despite a proposed addendum to define for who should or shouldn’t be searched for weapons, City Councilman Michael Harrison also expressed strong opposition to the proposal.

"I really doubt the effectiveness of a security guard in any kind of terrorist action," said Harrison, adding that it would only provide a "false sense of security."

The motion to hire a security guard for city hall was voted down, 3-2.

Devine expressed her displeasure with the vote from the dais.

"We put on our Website that our city is doing everything it can for its citizens," she said. "But I’d like it on the record that, indeed, we’re doing nothing.

"Our sheriff’s department is doing a good job, our water district is doing a good job, but we’re doing nothing."

Lee, on the other hand, went on the record with an opposing view, arguing that the city "has been very well prepared" for crises. She noted that Calabasas’ emergency operations system was in effect Sept. 11 "five minutes ahead of Los Angeles County."

However, another motion by City Councilman Dennis Washburn directing the city manager to make a report about what "has and needs to be done" to heighten security in the city was passed, 4-1, Devine’s being the dissenting vote.

Concerns over possible terrorism in Calabasas permeated much of the Oct. 17 meeting. The first item on the agenda was a presentation by Cmdr. Neil Tyler, a supervisor for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Emergency Operations Bureau, which includes the Terrorism Early Warning Group.

He laid out the county’s preparedness plans for dealing with the possibility of a terrorist incident and evaluating intelligence to prevent terrorism in Southern California.

Though no credible threats to the Los Angeles area have been uncovered in the past two months, according to Tyler, the county is better prepared than most other metropolitan regions in the country.

He emphasized community policing, however, and cautioned citizens to be alert to their surroundings and report any suspicious activity to authorities.