One irate citizen could get the Rapid City Council to spend $26,000 on new security measures:
[Assistant Police Chief Karl] Jegeris said 60 percent of the funds would come from the mayor and council contingency fund, with the remainder being paid by the Rapid City Area School District. About $4,800 of the costs would be used for designing the security updates, he said.
Jegeris said the most recent threat came as "very aggressive" emails with "indirect threatening innuendos attached to it." He added the council has received similar threats in the past.
"There was an issue recently about two to three months ago where there was an irate citizen that was generally upset with the council for a lack of action on an issue, and we have received concerns from council members regarding general security at meetings if this citizen were to show up," Jegeris told the committee [John Lee McLaughlin, "Police Ask for $26,000 to Improve Council Chambers Security," Rapid City Journal, 2013.10.31].
The ever conservative councilor Steve Laurenti balks at the cost of adding a half-wall between the public seats and the dais, moving the podium to the west side of the meeting room, and other security measures. I don't mind taking reasonable precautions to keep public servants safe... but maybe we could all do that without spending any money by toning down the Tea Party rhetoric that portrays government as the enemy and peddles the myth that we live in some tyrannical regime where the tree of liberty might need some bloody watering. Government is not the enemy, irate citizen; the government is us.
By all means these folks ought to buy themselves better security than the Governor, Supreme Court and legislature.
How many of these officeholders believe that people ought to be able to carry guns - concealed or open - into private businesses, churches, public facilities, everywhere?
Ye reap what ye sow. These guys have welcomed the Model T party with open arms and that includes open carry. Welcome to the big top, now lets get keep this circus going. Put some armed guards there just like they want to do with the schools, a couple of sandbags and it will look like Beirut when you enter.
Why should the city spend money on this when they have the racist, Wild Bill Clayton, packing heat at council meetings?
I have this bumper sticker on my car:
"Let's put a teacher in every gun store."
Maybe we need to mandate a teacher at every teabagger meeting.
If the teachers are also psychiatrists.