Cincinnati's City Manager has announced metal detectors will return to City Hall entrances on Apr. 4.
Harry Black said in a memo visitors must come through the front entrance. They will be screened using a metal detecting gate or hand-held metal detector.
Visitors will also have to sign in, show valid identification and wear a badge. In addition, people will have to be escorted to offices inside City Hall.
Cincinnati Vice Mayor David Mann said he is not supportive of some the city manager's proposals to increase security at City Hall. He said he understands the need for metal detectors at the building's entrances. But asking people to provide identification, wear visitor badges and be escorted within the building is too much.
“Once we are assured that an individual is not armed, I find the other proposed restriction to be totally at odds with our commitment to participatory democracy with an engaged citizenry,” Mann said in a written statement. “These rules can only deter the citizen involvement we profess to cherish.”
Mann also said the manager’s proposals “go far beyond the practice in most of our community’s governmental buildings.”
Mann is circulating a council motion asking that the security proposals be modified.
Black told a council committee on Monday he understands there is a balance.
“We want to make certain that our public buildings are as public as we can make them,” Black said. “But at the same time we have a responsibility to make certain that they are safe for the people who are coming into them to conduct business or to participate in various meetings as it relates to the democratic process.”
Cincinnati City Hall had metal detectors at the entrances from late 2003 until early 2006.
They were installed after then-Vice Mayor Alicia Reece was in New York City when a council member there was killed in a shooting incident at New York City Hall.
Former Mayor Mark Mallory had them removed soon after he took office to make the building more open and accessible. Since then visitors have had to sign in when entering and are given visitor's badges.
After an incident last year where a man drove his truck up to the steps of City Hall, people who want to meet with the mayor and city manager must sign in and then wait to be escorted to those offices. Crews also built walls to prevent the public from being able to directly access those offices.
