A wall will be going up soon in an executive suite at the Jefferson County Administration Center in Hillsboro in an effort to beef up security in that office space.
The Jefferson County Council voted 5-0 with two abstentions April 13 to approve a $14,200 contract to have the wall built.
The meeting was held by telephone, with about 10 members of the public listening in, officials said.
The suite where the wall will be built includes offices for County Executive Dennis Gannon, Director of Administration David Courtway, County Counselor Wes Yates, Assistant County Counselor Jason Cordes and three executive assistants.
Boyer Building and Design Inc. of De Soto submitted the lowest of three bids for the project, which will involve building a glass wall immediately inside the suite of offices with a window for transactions and a door to allow visitors in.
Currently, those wishing to visit people with offices in the suite must press a buzzer at the main entrance, and one of the executive assistants, who, with the help of a video camera, can see who’s at the door, releases a lock to allow access.
Gannon said that system has proven inefficient.
“I identified this item a year ago as a safety risk, as well as people coming into the office and then having total access to the office,” he said. “I wasn’t here more than two months before I figured out that this is not a very secure system.”
Gannon said several incidents since he took office in January 2019 have pointed that out.
“We have one door, and once it’s open, it’s open,” he said. “I had somebody walk in here (following someone else who had been buzzed in) before he could be stopped. It was an incoherent man who eventually was shown out, but before he left, he placed a pair of his underwear on someone’s shelf. I think it was in his pocket or something. But what do you do when someone walks in behind someone else and you think they’re together but, lo and behold, they’re not?”
Gannon said the current layout of the office area, with couches and chairs set up for visitors that are within eyeshot and earshot of the three executive assistants, also is a problem.
“We have to discuss human resource issues, personnel issues in front of visitors sometimes,” he said. “We have two attorneys and a paralegal working here, so this is also a law office and there’s attorney-client privilege. This is a working office.”
Yates also said the need for increased security in the suite area is great.
“Rarely do I talk about bills unless they have a legal implication. This has a human factor implication,” he said. “The county executive and municipal prosecutor have both received threats and three women (the executive assistants) are totally unprotected once somebody gets through the door. We have had several incidents in the last six months that caused me great concern as their supervisor. We’re all sitting ducks in there; we are unprotected.
“There is a constituent who since July has caused the people in this office more trouble than you can imagine. She has come in here because she had business but then tries to get past these ladies into the conference room and the county executive’s office.”
Councilwoman Renee Reuter (District 2, Imperial) asked that the bill be removed from consideration at the meeting.
“I’m very concerned about the state of our budget,” she said. “This is a significant budget request and I’m just not sure the state of the budget in our county would justify us doing something that is really a capital expenditure. That’s why I would remove it until we have more information on where we sit with the budget during this pandemic.”
Gannon asked council members to approve the contract.
“I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a simple security fix for the amount of money. I could have asked for this a year ago, but I didn’t feel appropriate doing it at that time (because he had recently taken office). This does a couple of things, security as well as confidentiality. I don’t think by any stretch it’s going to be problematic.”
Yates agreed.
“I get the concern with the budget, but I’ve got three women in the office getting more than antsy that (the wall) isn’t up, and I’ve been screaming to high heaven that it wasn’t up eight months ago or a year ago,” he said. “I am asking you – pleading with you – not to remove this bill.”
Reuter voted to remove the bill from the budget and Councilman Jim Terry (District 7, Cedar Hill) abstained. Both abstained from the vote to approve the bill.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen with the budget,” Reuter said. “I think this is the wrong time to spend money for something we want to do when I think right now we should be focused on spending money on things we have to do.”
Councilman Dan Stallman (District 6, De Soto) brought up the 2008 incident at the Kirkwood City Council meeting when a disgruntled resident shot and killed six people, including the mayor, and injured two others.
“The world has changed a lot,” said Stallman, a retired deputy from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. “We should secure the top people in our county in their own office.”
Gannon said his recent experience weighing decisions to issue executive orders in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic has given him some insight into safety matters.
“This thing with COVID-19 is a problem for all of us,” he said. “But I think about what if I didn’t do something and people died, and what if I did do something and fewer people died? This is a reasonable request. You either want our safety or you don’t.”
Terry said he abstained on both the votes to remove the bill and to approve it because he was concerned about the county’s budget, which relies on sales taxes, in the wake of the pandemic.
“I believe we should be extremely careful spending on something that we don’t have a really reason for,” he said. “I’m sympathetic to the need. There needs to be more security in the office, but I don’t support any spending that’s not absolutely necessary until we know how the budget is going to be affected.”