County manager wants tighter security

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

MONTICELLO, NY — When Sullivan County Attorney Sam Yasgur’s office was set ablaze, no security guard was on duty at the government center. The last sheriff deputy’s shift had ended at 8:00 p.m., a thin 13 minutes before the smoke alarm sounded.

No security cameras were watching as the arsonist(s) sidled through the unlocked front door, entered Yasgur’s office and set a fire that burned everything between the concrete floor and corrugated metal ceiling.

“It was like an oven in there,” said District Attorney Stephen Lungen. “It was very fast, which is one of the things that led us to determine that the fire was intentionally set.” Lungen’s office is leading the arson investigation with assistance from state police and the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department.

Two weeks after the fire that caused at least $1 million in damage and kept the building closed for six business days as the mess was cleaned up, County Manager Dan Briggs recommended measures to increase security at the 35-year-old government center. During the legislature’s July 7 planning committee meeting, he suggested equipping the building with up to 20 security cameras in order to maintain 24-hour surveillance. Other possibilities include a swipe card system to keep track of employees who enter the building after business hours and ID pads to protect government offices.

The night of the fire, the building’s two main doors were left unlocked. As of now, only one entrance is open after 6:00 p.m.

“There is always the possibility of having additional officers present in the building,” Briggs said, though the Homeland Security grants he is “cautiously optimistic” about can’t be used to pay for personnel. Briggs hopes the county can tap into funding from the federal department to pay for the $1,000 cameras, which he said would be monitored from the county’s 911 center.

“We’ll be moving quickly, in a month or so,” Briggs said. The county legislature will decide whether to implement the measures on July 21.

District 5 Legislator Rodney Gaebel, who attended the July 7 meeting, said that legislators need to discuss how elaborate the new security system should be.

“I know it’s an unfortunate situation and one that’s tough to deal with,” Gaebel said of the arson. “But sometimes circumstances create issues … We’ll do things differently and better, but what that will look like I’m not positive.”

Gaebel said, “I think there is a fine line between what is necessary and what is overkill. We need security but not overkill.”

Briggs’ recommendations are not new. The county considered similar measures for tightening security shortly after September 11, 2001. But lawmakers felt that steps beyond hiring security guards and instituting ID cards would deprive the government center of its public atmosphere, said legislature chairman Chris Cunningham.

“We didn’t want the building to feel like it was a fortress,” Cunningham said. “At this point I think they’re good recommendations. We’re trying to balance security needs with the fact that it’s a public building. It’s a balancing act.”

Cunningham said, “Obviously, no one anticipated this incident.”

The Orange County Government Center in Goshen, NY keeps an armed deputy from the county’s sheriff’s department on duty during business hours. All employees are required to wear ID badges and people visiting the courthouse and district attorney’s offices have to walk through metal detectors, said county spokesman Steve Gross. Security cameras are placed in critical areas of the government center.

“Sadly, it’s also a commentary on the times in which we live,” Briggs said. “We’re looking to take it up that one next step.”

Briggs said he doesn’t see the need to arm deputies who guard the Sullivan County Government Center.

“You don’t want it to become a Fort Knox, but you want visitors and the people who work here to feel secure.”