Metal detectors

Councilor Litz’s stupid suggestion of the day

l3wis November 12, 2008 4Comments

Once again, Bob Litz doesn’t disappoint by making another stupid suggestion; metal detectors at city hall. I will have to commend most of the councilors for commenting that it is not needed (now if we can just get rid of Knudson’s TV).

Mike Hall, city central services director, said that Council Chairman Bob Litz had asked him whether the city should consider adding a metal detector.

I find it extremely ironic that Litz, of all people, would suggest this safety measure. This is the same guy who got out of his car and twisted a teenager’s nose in a road rage incident. Maybe the councilors need to walk through a metal detector so citizens coming to the meetings know they are safe from them? I know I have felt intimidated by the plain clothes police officer.

At the informational meeting on Monday, councilor Jamison talked about an incident he got himself involved in that was a dispute between neighbors and a possible code violation. He thought it got a little hairy for awhile and suggested that maybe code enforcement should be ramped up. If anything it should be ramped down. I believe strongly in property rights, and if you own your property you should be able to do what you want on it – as long as you aren’t running a meth factory or brothel or endangering others in your neighborhood. I will admit, I have turned a neighbor in, BUT he was a renter and it was about his prototype 1971 Winnebago parked on the corner of a blind intersection, not on his rented property. I was afraid that someone would cruise through the intersection and plaster one of his young grandchildren to the road. Like I said, if it is a safey issue, you need to crack down, but if someone has a branch that hangs 12″ inches lower then it should – get over it.

I sometimes feel certain councilors and the mayor live pretty high on the hog and they feel that all citizens should have the same taste as they do when it comes to the way their property ‘looks’. I’m glad some of them have thousands of dollars to manicure their yard with tweezers but some of us are just as happy with a few dog turds and dandelions in our yards. So stop trying to push your personal tastes on us. Phillips to the Falls, the Facade easement program, million dollar historic windows on Pavilion, a $750,000 suspension bridge to nowhere and the unneeded bronze trim on the library are prime examples of that.

But back to the original topic of metal detectors; I think people in the comments section have summed it up pretty good;

StThor wrote:

The only thing that a metal detector before council meetings would accomplish is a giant inconvenience and irritation to regular citizens, while making the Council members feel like “big deals” too important to be worried about the niggling concerns of their “subjects”. Council members generally already have too much of the “fat head” syndrome.

Maybe we ought to have police get the Council members up in the morning, feed them breakfast, drive them around all day, always be at their shoulders, and tuck them in bed at night after they say their prayers. What a God-awful waste of money and personnel.

Remember, it wasn’t the “right-wing nuts” who were being watched who shot Kennedy, it was a Communist who wasn’t being watched.

bijoutoo wrote:

No, it would be just one more small step toward closed meetings and loss of access. Why do we always have a panic reaction when some ‘crazy” person does something? Society is prone to restricting the majority because of a minority reaction and with it goes one more small measure of our freedom. In my lifetime more restrictions have developed from random acts than I can count. But guess what – random acts still occur and always will. Why not spend time on real problems: illegal immigration, fradulent elections, government waste, actual school curricula that teach useful skills, punishing criminals and bringing civility back to daily interaction? We are our brothers keeper to a point but sometime the brother should become his own keeper.