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<br />Mr. Zelenka had not been very concerned about this issue until he had watched some of the recent town hall <br />meetings and seen some of the behavior exhibited by people on “both sides of the fence.” He was not certain <br />a panic button would work, given that the watch commander was only a short distance away. He noted that <br />the proximity of watch command could change if the police facility moved to the Country Club Road <br />location. He did not think they needed to have an officer present. <br /> <br />Mr. Clark remarked that how one defined outrageous behavior might be an interesting conversation. He <br />believed the council had seen quite a bit of outrageous behavior that matched or exceeded what they had <br />seen on television nationally. He agreed that they needed some mechanism to address the concern, though he <br />would not want to take police resources from active patrol. He was not concerned so much for the council <br />as for the situation in which someone with a disorder and/or a grievance who would come into a public <br />setting with 50 people present. He said a means to address this quickly and effectively was important. <br /> <br />Mr. Pryor commented that everything would be fine until it was not. He recalled the school shooting that <br />had happened in Springfield and how shocking that had been. He said the issue lay in how they should treat <br />this “everything is fine until it is not” situation. He stated that having the watch commander a short distance <br />away was not much different from having that person be a long way off because once someone pulled out a <br />gun it only took seconds to cause harm. He observed that even having an officer in the room was no <br />guarantee of a level of security. He noted that some places had installed metal detectors. He said he was <br />not necessarily advocating for the installation of metal detectors. He thought a panic button would help to <br />create a false sense of security, but would not actually make things more secure. He said there had been <br />times he had felt concerned and he had been discouraged by the lack of civility he had witnessed. But he <br />was not certain what to do about it that was reasonable, there would be no simple solution. <br /> <br />Mr. Poling observed that a watch commander alone would not be able to mitigate an extreme situation. He <br />shared Mr. Clark’s concern for the safety of everyone that would be attending a meeting. He was not <br />advocating for metal detectors or uniformed officers, but he thought they needed some kind of planning. As <br />for dangerous behavior, he had witnessed some people working themselves into a frenzy in the back of the <br />room before they came up to speak. He believed there was only a short distance between outrageous <br />behavior and dangerous behavior. He did not want to scare people away from the meetings or to exclude <br />anyone, but he thought the staff needed to be aware of what was going on around them, as did the <br />councilors. He said if one of the executive staff members saw something that did not feel right they should <br />have the authority and responsibility to send a note up to Mr. Ruiz or to suggest that a recess be called. <br /> <br />Ms. Taylor thought having a recess was a good idea. She added that she did not believe things had become <br />worse. <br /> <br />Ms. Medary suggested, as an interim step, that they invite Crime Prevention Specialist Tod Schneider to a <br />work session and an evening meeting to assess the situation. <br /> <br />Mayor Piercy approved of that idea and of the proposal to call a recess if a potential threat was perceived to <br />be in the room. She related that she had experienced the first unnerving situation in her political life in the <br /> <br /> <br />MINUTES—City Council September 23, 2009 Page 5 <br /> <br />