Bullettproof glass idea just part of building safety plans

The idea of putting bulletproof glass in two counter openings in the town office building’s lobby and on the outside of the Public Safety Building grew out of what were originally concerns about documents in the office building, according to Town Administrator Bruce Kneuer.

When the town’s Joint Loss Management Committee met in March, the chief issue on the minds of the members then was the vulnerability of the building to someone simply walking into the building and accessing what are supposed to be permanent town records.

As Kneuer pointed out last week, once someone enters the public building, it’s relatively easy for them to get around.

In the lobby there are two doors for both working sides of the building. But there is also an open hallway that leads to a public bathroom, the main meeting room — where documents are kept in a row of file cabinets — and the staff’s break room, which includes a small “mailroom” space where elected officials, department heads and staff member can leave messages to communicate with one another.

“Twice I’ve gone back into the break room — which is past the bathroom down the hall — and found someone there who I could only ask, who are you?” Kneuer said.

He also noted that it is just as easy for someone to walk through the meeting room and then through a back entrance into the office space he shares with Town Planner Bob Ward and other staff members.

“More than once I’ve been sitting at my desk working and had someone poke their head into my office, scaring me nearly to death,” he said.

Kneuer said that the committee’s concern was drawn to the files after it appeared that a document related to an ongoing court case had disappeared. “I don’t even know if it did,” the town administrator admitted. “Was it even there to begin with? I have no way of knowing.”

One idea the committee came up with was to add a security door about 10-feet down the hallway so the public would still have access to the bathroom but not be able to go into the meeting room or the break room, or administrative offices unless accompanied by an employee. (Employees could still make documents stored in the meeting room available to the public but they would have to stay in the room with the person examining the documents for security purposes.)

Another was to move the “mailroom” out of the break room and into an area that's now occupied by a doorway that goes into one portion of the staff office space.

“I’d be willing to sacrifice that space,” Kneuer said. “Let’s give up the doorway and put up a mailbox system. People could put things in through the back slots (in the office) and the board chairmen or whoever would have a key and can take out whatever is in there from the lobby.”

In that case, there would be no need a new door in the hallway. Instead, the door entering into the meeting room could be secured during the day.

A third idea was to somehow lock all the meeting room’s file cabinets — no easy task given that some of them are quite old and have no working locks. “We’ll have to use a bar system on them,” Kneuer explained.

When the committee met again, Town Clerk Jane Goss asked an important question, the administrator said. Is it was more important to worry about the town’s property — or its employees? (Goss had previously expressed her concerns about being in the office building some nights.)

Police Chief Mark Barton, who is on the committee, took notice and began proposing ways to strengthen the town’s facilities.

Not long afterwards, he brought the Board of Selectmen the proposal that the three bulletproof glass windows as a good place to start.

At first Barton said he considered tentative proposals from Granite State Glass and Portland Glass. He noted that it was suggested that the town could save some money by reducing the size of the Public Safety Building’s window by matching its size to the other two windows, and the chief agreed with the idea; he said another $325 would be needed to reframe the safety building’s window space.

Barton also explained that there were several different grades of bulletproof glass, some which could withstand virtually any kind of weapon and others that were not as strong. At the last meeting, he suggested the town could do with Grade 2 bulletproof glass, which was somewhat less expensive than a Grade 1 but would probably be sufficient for all the town’s needs.

At his last meeting with the Selectboard, the chief said that he’d gathered some figures that would bring the estimated cost of the project to about $13,000 for all three windows to be installed. He indicated that he would have a final figure for the board to review very soon.

Chairman Andrew Livernois noted that the project would primarily be funded by money the town saved on its purchase a new police vehicle this last year. “We put $40,000 in the budget for a new Ford Explorer but we were able to get one for about $10,000 less. So we’re going to try to use that money to pay for the windows.”

The idea of adding some kind of lock system to the town office building is still being considered by the selectmen.

Meanwhile, Kneuer pointed out that the whole process of looking at the safety of building issues was long overdue — especially in the wake of the violent encounters town employees have had in little towns like Colebrook and Conway.

He said he only learned that every New Hampshire town is supposed to have a building security plan in place when he got a call from a state official some time ago. “I went and looked in our file and there was nothing in it,” he said.

Not long afterwards, the Joint Loss Management Committee held its March meeting.