The Unified Government Commission discussion got personal Thursday – when discussing personal security or bodyguards for officials.
Commissioners had requested a review of the $250,000 “dignitary protection program” of the UG.
The program had come under criticism by some commissioners and some UG employees for spending too much money. At many events last year, the mayor was seen accompanied by two officers.
‘We already have officers here’
Commissioner Mike Kane on Thursday said he thought too much was being spent, and it’s up to the mayor to figure out how to reduce it. “I think we need to tone this back to where it’s more reasonable than where it is,” he said.
Other cities that are the size of Kansas City, Kan., do not have this level of personal security for officials, Kane said. Kansas City, Mo., has bodyguards for its mayor, but Topeka does not.
Mayor Mark Holland responded that the program was initiated and implemented by the Police Department, and funds are not spent at his discretion.
Kane said the UG ought to take the money spent on the program and purchase more security cameras for the courthouse. He said if there was a complaint box on what employees think, this would be the second highest complaint, and the employee health insurance that just went up would be the first.
Commissioner Kane did say he had used this dignitary protection program last week, and the program is needed, but he feels too much is being spent on it.
Kane also said he thought the UG Commission should get a chance to vote on it; however, a vote was not taken on Thursday. He said the people don’t like it. When he goes to Missouri, the mayor should have security with him, Kane said, but not just to run around Wyandotte County.
Kane brought up the issue at a public UG meeting last July in which he said he noticed that the mayor and the security detail went to a bar, and also that the security detail accompanied him to church on Sunday.
Commissioner Ann Murguia said she thought if you go to work somewhere else and there is a security issue, that the UG should not be covering that. If you go to a restaurant or bar where you feel a violent situation may break out, maybe you shouldn’t go there, she said.
Still, if she felt if someone was threatening her, she would definitely call the police, she said. “I like our police officer, but you don’t need to follow me around,” she said.
She said she agreed the mayor needed to be protected, but there were ways to deal with that within the confines of the budget.
She thought it was a good thing for commissioners or the mayor to call and coordinate security with the Police Department if they feel it is necessary, if there might be a hostile crowd or the topic might be controversial.
She said she thought the shooting outside City Hall in 2014 was an isolated incident and had more to do with the people and where they were at the time, but not that it was intended to occur on the steps of City Hall. She pointed out there already are armed officers at every public entry point at City Hall to protect everyone.
“We already have officers here, so I’m not sure what could be done differently than you’re already doing,” Commissioner Murguia said.
She added there are usually security officers already at most conventions, luncheons and conferences.
She said she thought that this dignitary detail is used 90 percent of the time for the mayor, and that part should come out of the mayor’s budget.
Commissioner Hal Walker said the money for the program should come out of the mayor’s budget, not the police budget. He said he was surprised at the cost.
“The incentive to economize should be on you, mayor,” Walker said.
He said he is aware of certain individuals that came to the mayor’s church, and if he were in a group setting, he would ask for security to be there. “And it’s none of the commissioners,” he added.
Mayor: Police made a professional decision
The first month that this program started, the security detail went everywhere he went, seven days a week, then made an assessment about where they should go, Mayor Holland said.
“I think we cleared up at the last meeting, yes, they did go down to Breit’s with me,” the mayor said. “They did not have a beer. I did, they did not. And they said, ‘we don’t need to be here,’ and they stopped coming.”
He said the police have made a professional decision based on where he is, and what they think security should be.
“I run all my errands on my own. All of the time I’m on my time, I’m on my time,” Mayor Holland said. He contrasted that with Kansas City, Mo., where the security detail is with the mayor all the time.
Mayor Holland said he talked with Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who said the police should evaluate whether they need to be at his church. “Cleaver said when he was mayor, he had a number of incidents at his church,” Holland said. “I can tell you, a lot of people come to my church to meet the mayor.”
One nice woman sat through the whole service because she wanted to tell him about a branch that was down on her street, he added. “I’ve also had people come to my church who were not sweet and who came to see the mayor,” he said.
Holland said this is something the police made the assessment on, and he trusts the police judgment as he is not a security professional.
“They’ve had the training, they know where the risk is and they make the assessment, so I trust the chief’s judgment on this,” Holland said.
‘I wish I could foretell’
Commissioner Jane Philbrook said there have been a few times when officers were present when she was representing the UG at events. Security was provided without her asking for it, as she was standing in for the mayor, she added.
“I wish I could foretell,” she said. “I would say that 95 percent of the time when there is an attack or I’ve ever been in a questionable position, it was a total surprise. I don’t want to say that I can tell ahead of time if somebody is going to go off. I wish we could, then it would be a lot cheaper.”
Commissioner Melissa Bynum said she has used the dignitary security, and is allowing the officers to see her UG calendar to determine if security is needed.
Commissioner Harold Johnson said he had asked for the dignitary detail once for an event at nighttime in an open setting.
“It was very comforting to me,” he said. “I’m going to work with the will of the commission, but it does have its benefits.”
Commissioner Brian McKiernan said he didn’t want to spend this money, but he was not convinced at some level that the UG didn’t need to start spending this money, just because of the evolution of events in the nation.
“While I don’t want to spend it, I think we should be open to some variation of this in the future, at least bits and pieces of it as it relates to certain events in City Hall and at commission meetings, whatever that might be,” Commissioner McKiernan said. “I think we need to be open to that, because unfortunately with current nationwide and world events, I’m afraid it’s just getting to the point where all municipalities need to start budgeting for expenses just like this, unfortunately.”
How the program started
UG Administrator Doug Bach said this program, which provides individual officers from the Kansas City, Kan., Police Department for the mayor, commissioners or judges, was initiated in 2014 by former acting Chief Ellen Hanson, and started in 2015 under Chief Terry Zeigler. Changes were made to the program midway through the year, he said.
As justification for the program, Chief Zeigler cited national cases including a 2010 school board shooting in Florida, and the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona.
What brought this home for the Kansas City, Kan., Police Department was a shooting in January 2014 on the back steps of Kansas City, Kan., City Hall, between the building and the Health Department, where an individual who had come out of a building was pushed, shot and killed, he said. City Hall was locked down.
“It made us start thinking about whether we were doing anything or enough for security at City Hall and our elected officials,” Zeigler said.
Research was done, contacting the Kansas Highway Patrol, and the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, he said.
At the beginning of 2015, Zeigler said he told the commission the program would cost about $250,000 out of the department’s current resources. The total actual cost of the program during the year was about $248,000, he said. The amount includes about $10,000 for training.
Zeigler said the program also evaluated threats, and had counted 23 threats last year. He said the program is monitoring social media.
The program is designed to provide protection for the mayor and commissioners, he said. It also is available when there is a concern for the safety of judges and other UG elected officials, he added.
The dignitary protection program also consults with City Hall security on issues and provides a layer of security at UG Commission meetings and Standing Committee meetings, he said.
Some changes may be ahead
Bach said Chief Zeigler and he believed this was a valuable unit and has its place within the government.
“We will continue to evaluate it and look for ways where we can find it to be more efficient,” he said.
He said there may be some areas that they don’t spend as much time on, and other areas that they may put more emphasis on.
“We do have a lot of elected officials in this government and they’re not all sitting in this room,” Bach said. As there were significant changes made in the program last year, there will probably be more changes in it this year, he said.