Denver’s City Council is considering shutting down the metal detectors at the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Building to save money and to increase public access.
The idea makes good sense on both fronts.
The city spends about $850,000 year to staff and operate the detectors. It hires a private security firm that supplies 20 full-time workers and five part-time workers; they guard the building 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Councilman Doug Linkhart has researched the matter for years and has come up with several reasonable arguments to support cutting the security contract.
Designers of the Webb building fully intended for security to be provided on all floors in the form of electronic card readers that restrict access to offices such as the District Attorney and other sensitive areas.
But the lobby was designed to be an open atrium attractive to pedestrians and passers-by moving between civic and commercial attractions nearby.
To reach that goal of openness, the original plans didn’t call for metal detectors. But the building opened a year after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and the decision was made to add the detectors during those fearful days.
Obviously, we want to feel safe within our public buildings and want city employees to feel safe. But we also value ease of movement and openness, and the whole point of combining some 40 different city agencies in a single building is to provide residents with one-stop-shopping that’s as convenient as possible.
The City and County Building, more sensitive because of its courtrooms, would — and should — retain its metal detectors.
“The mayor wants the city to be more customer-friendly, but we pat people down who want to get married,” Linkhart tells us, speaking of the Webb building’s many public offices for such things as marriage licenses, small-business assistance and property records.
Easing access by cutting the metal detectors would benefit the public in other ways.
At a time when the recession has required Denver to shore up its budget through 2010 by $160 million, Mayor John Hickenlooper has proposed reducing library hours, closing a branch library and some community recreation centers and reducing a summer employment program for youth. Many on the council want to find other ways to save money to keep those services at present levels.
If easing access at the Webb building can be done in such a way that those who use it and the employees who work there feel safe, the council should move forward and the metal detectors should go.
Count us among those who won’t miss them — not one beeping bit.
